Patent ID: 7206841

Claim:
A peer-to-peer network, comprising: a plurality of peer nodes, wherein each peer node comprises a network node configured to communicate with one or more other ones of said peer nodes over the peer-to-peer 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 a core layer 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 network resources in the peer-to-peer environment; one or more rendezvous nodes, wherein each rendezvous node is operable to cache one or more resource advertisements for discovery by the peer nodes on the peer-to-peer network, wherein each resource advertisement comprises an indication of how to access a corresponding network resource, wherein the one or more peer-to-peer platform protocols include a discovery protocol, wherein said one or more resource advertisements are formatted in accordance with the peer-to-peer platform discovery protocol.