Agent based peer-to-peer systems

A peer-to-peer (P2P) network comprises a collection of nodes that can cooperate and collaborate with each other in a decentralized and distributed manner. A node in a P2P network can access information present in the network using peer discovery followed by a search and retrieval phase. At present, most P2P systems employ message communication to implement the operations in a P2P network. In this paper, we propose the use of mobile software agents to implement the protocols in a P2P system. Mobile software agents are autonomous, economic in terms of size and bandwidth consumption, and can operate remotely without the continuous supervision of a central server. Our research indicates that mobile software agents provide a suitable paradigm for implementing P2P systems that is both scalable and robust.