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What are the Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure APIs?

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The Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure is a set of several APIs that are powerful and flexible. The major components include the following:

  • Peer-to-Peer Graphing API
  • Peer-to-Peer Grouping API
  • Peer-to-Peer Identity Manager API
  • PNRP Namespace Provider API

Peer-to-Peer Graphing API

The Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure provides a graphing technology that can pass information efficiently and reliably between peers in a peer-to-peer graph. The Peer-to-Peer Graphing API ensures that each node has a consistent view of the data in a graph.

You can use the Peer-to-Peer Graphing API to do the following:

  • Create and manage peer-to-peer graphs
  • Enumerate and interact with other peers in a peer-to-peer graph
  • Send data in the form of a record to each node in a peer-to-peer graph

Peer-to-Peer Grouping API

The Peer-to-Peer Grouping API combines and enhances the Peer-to-Peer PNRP and Graphing APIs, and adds the following two components:

  • A multiplexing layer that allows multiple applications running on one peer-to-peer entity to connect to a group
  • A specific security model that ensures only peers invited to a group can connect to the group through the lifetime of the group

You can use the Peer-to-Peer Grouping API to do the following:

  • Create and manage secure peer-to-peer groups
  • Enumerate and interact with other peers in a group
  • Send data in the form of a record to each node in a peer-to-peer group

Peer-to-Peer Identity Manager API

By using the Peer-to-Peer Identity Manager API you can create secure peer names that PNRP can use to ensure that a person publishing a name officially owns the name. Peer names are also called identities, and they are used in the Peer-to-Peer Grouping API to identify the individuals in a group.

You can use the Peer-to-Peer Identity Manager API to do the following:

  • Create, enumerate, and manage peer-to-peer identities.

PNRP Namespace Provider API

The Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure provides a serverless name resolution technology called the PNRP Namespace Provider API. By using the Winsock 2 PNRP Namespace Provider API, a peer, service, computing device, and peer-to-peer group endpoint can manage, register, unregister, and resolve another endpoint in a PNRP cloud.

Note  PNRP is an acronym for peer name resolution protocol.

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Build date: 1/7/2009