Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks enable users to directly share digital content (such as audio, video, and text files) as well as real-time data (such as telephony traffic) with other users without depending on a central server. Although originally popularized by unlicensed online music services such as Napster, P2P networking has recently emerged as a viable multimillion dollar business model for the distribution of academic and clinical information, telecommunications, and social networking. Written at an accessible level for any reader familiar with fundamental Internet protocols, Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications explains the conceptual operations and architecture underlying basic P2P systems using well-known commercial systems as models. The book also delineates the latest research directions, thereby providing not only a sophisticated understanding of current systems, but also the means to improve upon these systems with innovations that will better performance, security, and flexibility. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications is thus both a valuable starting point and an important reference to those practioners employed by any of the 200 companies with approximately $400 million invested in this new and lucrative technology.
* Uses well-known commercial P2P systems as models, thus demonstrating real-world applicability.
* Discusses how current research trends in wireless networking, high-def content, DRM, etc. will intersect with P2P, allowing readers to account for future developments in their designs.
* Provides online access to the Overlay Weaver P2P emulator, an open source tool that supports a number of peer-to-peer applications with which readers can practice.

Peer-to-peer networking is a disruptive technology for large scale distributed app- cations that has recently gained wide interest due to the successes of peer-to-peer (P2P) content sharing, media streaming, and telephony applications. There are a large range of other applications under development or being proposed. The - derlying architectures share features such as decentralizaton, sharing of end system resources, autonomy, virtualization, and self-organization. These features constitute the P2P paradigm. This handbook broadly addresses a large cross-section of c- rent research and state-of-the-art reports on the nature of this paradigm from a large number of experts in the ?eld. Several trends in information and network technology such as increased perf- mance and deployment of broadband networking, wireless networking, and mobile devices are synergistic with and reinforcing the capabilities of the P2P paradigm. There is general expectation in the technical community that P2P networking will continue to be an important tool for networked applications and impact the evo- tion of the Internet. A large amount of research activity has resulted in a relatively short time, and a growing community of researchers has developed. The Handbook of Peer-to-Peer Networking is dedicated to discussions on P2P networks and their applications. This is a comprehensive book on P2P computing.