Peer-to-peer communication pipes

摘要

A system and method for establishing communications channels between and among peers in a peer-to-peer networking environment. Pipes may be used as communication channels for sending and receiving messages and other data between services or applications over input and output endpoints. Pipes may be asynchronous, unidirectional, stateless and unreliable. Bidirectional pipes may also be supported. Pipes may have ends that may be moved around and bound to different peers at different times. Point-to-point and propagate pipes may be supported. Pipes may connect peers that have a direct physical link and peers that do not have a direct link. Peers may communicate through pipes without knowing on which peer a pipe endpoint is bound. A message is sent to all peer endpoints currently connected (listening) to the pipe. The set of connected endpoints may be obtained from a pipe service using a pipe binding protocol.

主权项

1. A peer computing system, comprising:
a plurality of peer nodes, wherein each peer node comprises one or more network interfaces, wherein each network interface is configured to implement at least one of one or more network transport protocols; means for one of the plurality of peer nodes to create a pipe on the network, wherein the pipe represents a virtual communications channel for communicating with one or more other of the plurality of peer nodes on the network; means for the peer node to bind the pipe to an endpoint of the peer node, wherein the endpoint of the peer node corresponds to and uniquely identifies one of the one or more network interfaces on the peer node, and wherein the network interface of the peer node corresponding to the endpoint of the peer node implements a particular network transport protocol used on the pipe; means for another one of the plurality of peer nodes to discover the pipe created by the peer node; means for the other peer node to request information corresponding to the discovered pipe on the network; means for the other peer node to bind, based at least in part on the requested information, the pipe to an endpoint of the other peer node, wherein the endpoint of the other peer node corresponds to and uniquely identifies one of the one or more network interfaces on the other peer node, and wherein the network interface of the other peer node corresponding to the endpoint of the other peer node implements a particular network transport protocol used on the pipe; and means for the other peer node to communicate with the peer node over the pipe in accordance with the particular network transport protocol.