Patent ID: 7953083

Claim:
A second level (L2) peer node operating as a super peer node for a plurality of first level (L1) peer nodes in a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network comprising: a communication interface communicatively coupling the L2 peer node to a network; and a control system associated with the communication interface and configured to: provide a first query multicast channel, wherein the L2 peer node and the plurality of L1 peer nodes associated with the L2 peer node are subscribed to the first query multicast channel in order to propagate queries throughout the P2P network; receive a query from a querying peer node of the plurality of L1 peer nodes via the first query multicast channel; multicast the query to a plurality of other L2 peer nodes in the P2P network via a second query multicast channel; provide a first control multicast channel to which the plurality of L1 peer nodes are subscribed, the first control multicast channel being a SSM channel having the L2 peer node as a permissible source; multicast a list of permissible sources able to use the first query multicast channel to the plurality of L1 peer nodes via the first control multicast channel, the list of permissible sources comprising at least one of the plurality of L1 peer nodes including the querying peer node, wherein the L2 peer node bases the list on activities of ones of the plurality of L1 peer nodes; receive responses to the query directly from ones of pluralities of L1 peer nodes associated with the plurality of other L2 peer nodes; aggregate the responses to the query from the ones of the pluralities of L1 peer nodes to provide an aggregate response, wherein aggregating includes filtering the responses based on system characteristics of the ones of pluralities of L1 peer nodes; and provide the aggregate response to the querying peer node.