A comparison of peer-to-peer architectures.

The large number of peer-to-peer file-sharing applications can be subdivided in three basic categories: having a mediated, pure or hybrid architecture. This paper details each of these and indicates their respective strengths and weaknesses. In addition to this theoretical study, a number of practical experiments were conducted, with special attention for three popular applications, representative of each of the three architectures. Although a number of measurement studies have been done in the past ([1], [3], etc.) these all investigate only a fraction of the available applications and architectures, with very little focus on the bigger picture and to the recent evolutions in peer-to-peer architectures.

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