METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISTRIBUTING DATA IN A PEER-TO- PEER NETWORK

摘要

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of distributing data to peers of a peer-to-peer network to enable those peers to provide data to other peers. The method comprises predefining a minimum number of peers that are required to store a data item, sending the data item to a number of data receiving peers from one or more data servers, determining if the number of data receiving peers that have sufficient storage capacity available to store the data item is less than the predefined minimum number, and, if it is, deleting previously stored data to make sufficient storage capacity available.