Patent ID: 7574523

Claim:
A peer computing system, comprising: a plurality of peer nodes operable to couple to a network, wherein the plurality of peer nodes are configured to implement a peer-to-peer environment on the network according to a peer-to-peer platform comprising one or more peer-to-peer platform protocols for enabling the plurality of peer nodes to discover each other, communicate with each other, and cooperate with each other to form peer groups and share content in the peer-to-peer environment, and wherein each of the plurality of peer nodes is a host of content in the peer-to-peer environment; wherein the plurality of peer nodes are partitioned by a mechanism on the network into a set of one or more peer nodes inside the mechanism and a set of one or more peer nodes outside the mechanism, wherein peer nodes on opposite sides of the mechanism cannot communicate directly with each other on the network; wherein one of the plurality of peer nodes is a relay peer node operable to couple to the network outside the mechanism, and further operable to: cache route information describing one or more routes to peer nodes on the network; receive a message from a peer node outside the mechanism, wherein the message is for a peer node inside the mechanism; relay the message to the peer node inside the mechanism; receive a query requesting route information to one of the plurality of peer nodes from another one of the plurality of peer nodes, wherein the query is formatted according to an endpoint routing protocol; and send the requested route information to the requesting peer node in accordance with the endpoint routing protocol.