Patent ID: 7596625
Filing Date: 2009-09-29
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of providing an interface for use by an application program in a peer-to-peer computing system to establish peer-to-peer groups and pass data between members of the peer-to-peer groups, comprising the steps of: receiving from the application program a peer group startup function call including a requested version of a peer-to-peer grouping infrastructure; utilizing peer version information to determine an output parameter, the peer version information including an expected version of the peer-to-peer grouping infrastructure and a highest version of the peer-to-peer grouping infrastructure; providing the output parameter of the peer group startup function call, the output parameter based on the peer version information and pointing to the peer version information; returning a return value indicating the success or failure of the peer group startup function call; receiving from the application program a peer-to-peer group management call having a plurality of parameters; parsing the peer-to-peer group management call to retrieve the plurality of parameters; imparting the plurality of parameters to the peer version information of the peer-to-peer grouping infrastructure indicated by the output parameter of the peer group startup function call; returning to the application program a value indicative of the success/failure of the peer-to-peer group management call corresponding to the imparted plurality of parameters; receiving from the application program a peer group shutdown function call corresponding to the received peer group startup function call, the peer group shutdown function call for cleaning up resources allocated by the received peer group startup function call; and returning an indication of success or failure of the peer group shutdown function call.