Patent ID: 7796520

Claim:
A peer-to-peer network comprising: a plurality of interconnected peer-to-peer packet-based network devices; and a plurality of services, each hosted by a respective at least one peer-to-peer packet-based network device; each peer-to-peer packet-based network device that hosts at least one service of the plurality of services making the at least one service available to other peer-to-peer packet-based network devices of the plurality of peer-to-peer packet-based network devices; wherein each peer-to-peer packet-based network device that hosts at least one service of the plurality of services announces availability of the at least one service to other peer-to-peer packet-based network devices of the plurality of peer-to-peer packet-based network devices, wherein for a given service of said plurality of services, the given service is dynamically load balanced across more than one peer-to-peer packet-based network device hosting the given service, and wherein services are allocated to particular peer-to-peer packet-based network devices as a function of statistical information gathered regarding the peer-to-peer packet-based network devices.