Patent ID: 7610378

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a peer resource request at a first peer platform included in a peer-to-peer network, the request being for a peer resource associated with the first peer platform, said resource request including an identifier of the resource and uniquely identifying a master publisher peer of the peer resource within the peer-to-peer network, where the master publisher peer updates and publishes the resource and other peers cache copies of the peer resource, said peer resource request being received from a second peer platform included in the peer-to-peer network through a networking environment, said second peer platform having located the peer resource through a resource locator service included in the peer-to-peer network, the resource locator service comprising a hierarchical arrangement of servers that together track names of which resources are available on which peers, where a peer looking up a resource sends the resource's name to a home server to which the peer is assigned, and if the home server does not know a peer location of the resource then the name of the resource is passed up the hierarchy of servers until an RNS server identifies a peer that has the resource, the tracking including the resource locator service identifying peers that have joined and left the peer-to-peer network; and providing the second peer platform access to the peer resource through the first peer platform.