
Chapter 2
P2P Applications
2.1 Introduction
As in many computing technology breakthr oughs, the advancements in
peer-to-peer (P2P) systems are large ly br ought about by applications’ de-
mands. Indeed, evolving from the ear ly file sharing systems to nowadays’
video streaming systems, many novel efficient solutions have been proposed
and implemented to satisfy various use rs’ requirements. Thus, before we look
at these advancements in detail in later chapters, it is us e ful for us to review
the evolution of P2P applications in this chapter.
As shown in Figure 2.1, there are three main components in a typical P2P
system. The first one is a Web portal of