Peer-to-peer, or P2P, computing is a distributed application architecture in which peers—equally privileged and equipotent network participants—share tasks or workloads. In this way, a peer-to-peer network of nodes is created in which other network users can directly access resources such as computing power, disk storage, or network bandwidth without the need for central coordination. Unlike the conventional client-server approach, peers are both resource providers and consumers.
The 1999 release of Napster, a file-sharing platform, made P2P systems widely known and gave rise to new paradigms and structures in interpersonal communication. P2P, as used in a social context, describes the egalitarian social networking that has proliferated due to internet technologies.
Comments