http://aspadvice.com/forums/345/ShowForum.aspxIntegrating P2P technology into an application takes more than programming, it takes design and concept. Generally an application needs to be thought of differently when making P2P a core part of the value proposition. Come discuss how P2P affects the whole software development effort.enCommunityServer 2.1 (Build: 60809.935)http://aspadvice.com/forums/thread/12876.aspxSun, 25 Sep 2005 22:50:24 GMTe709ad4c-0c15-48eb-915e-c462c6e85445:12876MichaelLatta0http://aspadvice.com/forums/thread/12876.aspxhttp://aspadvice.com/forums/commentrss.aspx?SectionID=345&PostID=12876<P>The discussion was very good.&nbsp; We started with what makes a P2P application different.&nbsp; What components tend to be present in a P2P application that may be optional or limited in other cases.&nbsp; Concensus was that all the key components were required for a P2P application to function.</P> <P>1) Some way to locate other peers.</P> <P>2) Som way to authenticate/trust other peers.</P> <P>3) Some way to know if other peers are available/online/etc.</P> <P>4) Some way to exchange information with the peers.</P> <P>There was a good discussion of various frameworks available for P2P applications.&nbsp; The use of game related SDKs came up several times as worth evaluating.&nbsp; The new WCF support for P2P applications looks quite promising with the PDC bits supporting PNRP.</P> <P>There was a long discussion&nbsp;of what it takes to make P2P applications work in real networks where firewalls and NAT can cause connectivity problems.&nbsp; Port 80 tunneling was seen as a requirement in many IT environments as even opening a small range of ports for P2P applications is hard to get past central IT departments.&nbsp; The IPv6 based tunneling in the MS environment was seen as one of the more complete solutions, but may need to be configured/enabled in XP while it is expected to be enabled by default in Vista.</P> <P>Finally the last major point was that many found it easier and more secure to use a central server for peer resolution and authentication.&nbsp; The need to verify peer identity without a central authority was a major issue for some present that are more in the mobility space.&nbsp; In general verification of trust in a P2P application becomes harder without some central management.&nbsp; The data trafic can be done P2P, but a client/server model for initiating conversations was seen as often desireable.&nbsp; The 2 cases where this does not work is when the application must support interactions without access to the internet (in a secure setting, on the battlefield, or in a hotel room without an internet connection).&nbsp; The biggest problem with true P2P applications is that they turn each machine into a server, with all the security/vulnerability issues that entails.</P>