Peer to peer network connections give the ability of devices to communicate to other devices in a network without the need of a central unit architecture (client-server connection), in which each user on the network contributes towards the information being shared between all the clients on the network.
Peer to Peer has two common factors that are used in video games to get peer to peer connections to work. The first is the dedicated computer model, in which all connections would connect to the host computer. The host PC works as both a server and an active participant in the game. The second is the mesh system, in which no host is established, and all computers run both ‘client-server’ connections. The mesh network never holds a master state of the game as everyone negotiates with each other about what state they are in.
As established by Schollmeier (2001), the resources of each additional machine that connects to a network in the peer to peer environment will share a portion of the resources that the machine can provide to bolster the network capabilities. (2001) A quick glance at how this approach works best is by thinking about the rise of file sharing services such as Napster (Carlsson & Gustavsson 2001), Limewire (Bangeman 2010) and countless (letter)Torrent interfaces that have spawned over the years.
While only a rather brief discussion has been presented on how peer to peer connections work, an issue that often arises is how peer to peer has severe trust issues when it comes to other users. Some established issues are that identity remains almost non-existent in many cases as security is often compromised or mismanaged. With no security, the introduction of non-required items or files into the network can reduce the integrity of the entire network (Hartly 2007).
References:
Schollmeier, R 2001, ‘A definition of peer-to-peer networking for the classification of peer-to-peer architectures and applications’, Proceedings First International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing, pp. 101-102.
Carlsson, B & Gustavsson, R 2001, ‘The rise and fall of napster-an evolutionary approach’, International Computer Science Conference on Active Media Technology (pp. 347-354). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Bangeman, R 2010, Sour Ruling for LimeWire as court says to turn off P2P functionality, Arstechnica, accessed 24 May 2020, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/10/sour-ruling-for-limewire-as-court-says-to-turn-off-p2p-functionality/
Hartley, J.M 2007, Peer-to-Peer Networking: A Mobile Coming of Age, Intel, accessed 24 May 2020, https://software. intel. com/en-us/articles/peer-topeer-networking-a-mobile-coming-of-age.