Patent ID: 7920572
Filing Date: 2011-04-05
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: establishing a first node in a peer-to-peer data communications network, wherein the first node is configured as a supernode in conformance with a peer-to-peer communications protocol, wherein the first node is configured as an active listener to one or more network routing protocols executing at a network router; wherein the peer-to-peer communications protocol returns a list of peer nodes that have a replica of a requested resource; wherein the one or more network routing protocols comprise BGP; receiving a routing information message from one of the one or more network routing protocols; wherein the routing information message comprises a BGP UPDATE message that contains network routing information; modifying an operational characteristic of the first node in response to the routing information message by establishing a preference for local nodes as candidates for responding to one or more requests for one or more resources by storing an AS_PATH attribute in association with a corresponding network prefix for each route in the network routing information; after receiving the routing information message, receiving a request of the one or more requests from a second node in the peer-to-peer data communications network for a particular resource of the one or more resources that is known to the first node; and the first node determining, based on the modified operational characteristic, a set of best candidate peer-to-peer protocol nodes known to the first node to have a replica of the particular resource requested by the second node; wherein each node of the set of best candidate peer-to-peer protocol nodes matches a network prefix stored in association with an AS_PATH attribute, wherein the AS_PATH attribute is zero, indicating that the set of best candidate peer-to-peer protocol nodes are located only within a BGP autonomous system that includes the network router; responding to the request by returning to the second node a list of one or more peer-to-peer protocol nodes of the set of best candidate peer-to-peer protocol nodes, wherein the operational characteristic comprises referring the second node to a replica of the resource that is located only within a BGP autonomous system that includes the router.