Difference between revisions of "History of Computers - P2P Networks"

From SJS Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
(Overview)
(Overview)
Line 18: Line 18:
  
 
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/napster.gif '''<-Napster Network'''
 
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/napster.gif '''<-Napster Network'''
 +
 +
 +
The problem with Napster was that it gave users access to music for free, violating record labels' copyrights. Napster faced a number of lawsuits, and courts ordered Napster to monitor its network and prevent the sharing of copyrighted material. Due to the nature of P2P networks, however, Napster was unable to do so and shut down in July 2001.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster</ref>
  
 
==Significance==
 
==Significance==

Revision as of 09:57, 28 August 2011

Page created by Brett Gutstein, 22 August 2011

Peer to Peer (P2P) Networks

Peer to peer (P2P) networking is a distributed application architecture that lacks a central server. In peer to peer networks, members make a portion of their resources available to other members of the network, so peers are both suppliers and consumers of resources.[1] Computers in P2P networks run the same networking protocols and software and share equal responsibility for processing data.[2]

200px-Server-based-network.svg.png <- Server Based Network200px-P2P-network.svg.png <- Peer to Peer Network

Overview

Peer to peer networks can be configured over LAN or the Internet. Local area P2P networks can be configured both wired and wirelessly, and allow the sharing of files, printers, and other resources between involved computers. Over the Internet, P2P networks can handle an extremely high volume of file sharing because the workload is distributed across many computers worldwide. Internet based P2P networks are less likely to fail or experience a traffic bottleneck than client-server networks for the same reason.[3]


The idea of P2P networking has been around since 1969, when the Internet Engineering Task Force pusblished its first Request for Comments.[4] However, the first dial-up P2P network was created in 1980 in the form of Usenet, which was a worldwide Internet discussion system. The difference between other web forums and Usenet was that Usenet did not depend on a central server or administrator-- it was distributed among a constantly changing group of servers that stored and forwarded messages to one another in bursts called news feeds. Individual users could read messages from and post messages to a local server, which would then send posted messages around the world.[5]

200px-Usenet_servers_and_clients.svg.png <-Usenet Network


The next advancement in P2P networking came in 1990 with the release of Napster. In addition to being a P2P network, its network consisted of a single server that was solely used to bootstrap the system and serve indexing functions. Napster allowed users to easily share files, primarily mp3s, worldwide. Users with the Napster software and a shared partition on their computer could query the internal server for the song they were looking for. The internal server would find a different user that had the song in his or her shared partition, and a connection would be established between the two machines. The person searching for the song would download the song from the person who owned it, and the connection would be terminated when the download was complete.[6]

napster.gif <-Napster Network


The problem with Napster was that it gave users access to music for free, violating record labels' copyrights. Napster faced a number of lawsuits, and courts ordered Napster to monitor its network and prevent the sharing of copyrighted material. Due to the nature of P2P networks, however, Napster was unable to do so and shut down in July 2001.[7]

Significance

References

Links


Cite error: <ref> tags exist, but no <references/> tag was found