A Peer-to-Peer Reference Architecture

Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications are extremely popular on the Internet because they allow users to share information in a decentralized manner. Internet users use file-sharing applications (e.g., BitTorrent, KaZaA) to share and exchange files and collaboration applications (e.g., Jabber, Groove) to exchange chat messages and work on shared documents. A reference architecture for a domain provides an architecture template which can be used as a starting point for designing the software architecture of a system in that domain. Despite the popularity of P2P applications there is no reference architecture for the P2P domain. This paper presents a reference architecture for the P2P domain. The reference architecture has been designed to satisfy the concerns that a P2P application needs to address. The reference architecture takes a service-centric view of the P2P domain. The reference architecture can be used to describe the structure of existing P2P applications and middlewares. The paper validates the reference architecture by describing the structure of some of the existing P2P applications and middlewares using the reference architecture