A peer-to-peer application architecture is one in which each node, or logical entity, in the
global application (consisting of all of the interoperating peer nodes) may act as either
client
? or server
?, whether in turn (serial
? roles) or simultaneously ([parallel roles]
?)
may be termed a peer-to-peer application architecture, and such applications are often known
as peer-to-peer, or P2P "apps".
Many peer-to-peer applications use unequal peers, for example, to provide index or [lookup services]?
to the [leaf nodes]?. Typically the [leaf nodes]? will each be an personal computer, but
may be anything from a workstation? to a mainframe to a supercomputer?.
Examples of peer-to-peer applications at the time of this writing include: