Applications-based P2P networks

There are many applications that are based on a P2P network. They can be used for the following:

• Content distribution: This is file sharing (files, music, videos, images)
• Distributed computing: This is when a problem is divided into smaller tasks and executed in a parallel fashion
• Collaboration: This is when users work together to solve a common problem
• Platforms: These are systems on which P2P applications are built, such as JXTA, and Pastry

Distributed computing leverages the power of larger numbers of smaller computers to perform a task. The problems amenable to this approach require that they be broken down into smaller units and then executed concurrently on multiple machines. The results of these smaller tasks then need to be combined to produce a final result.

P2P networks support a number of applications, such as the following ones:

• Skype: This is a video-conferencing application
• Freecast: This is peer-to-peer streaming audio program
• BitTorrent: This is a...