JXTA in a Nutshell

Requirements for JXTA Protocols

The JXTA protocols do not require periodic messages of any kind or at any level to be sent within the network. For example, JXTA does not require periodic polling, link status sensing, or neighbor detection messages, and does not rely on any underlying network transport for these functions. This entirely on-demand behavior of the JXTA protocols, and lack of periodic activity, allow the number of overhead messages caused by JXTA to scale down to zero—all peers are stationary with respect to each other, and all routes needed for current communication have already been discovered.

A peer may decide to cache advertisements discovered via the PDP for later use. It is important to point out that caching is not required by the JXTA architecture, but caching is an important optimization. Caching advertisements with a peer avoids having to perform a new discovery each time the peer accesses a network resource. In highly transient environments, discovery is the only viable solution. In static environments, caching is more efficient.

A unique characteristic of P2P networks, as with JXTA, is their ability to replicate information toward end users. Popular content tends to be replicated more often, making it easier to find, as more copies are available. Peers do not have to go back to the same peer to obtain the information they want (which is the current client/server model). Peers can obtain information from neighboring peers that have already cached the ...