Page "Peer-to-peer" Paragraph 28

In P2P networks, clients provide resources, which may include bandwidth, storage space, and computing power.

This property is one of the major advantages of using P2P networks because it makes the setup and running costs very small for the original content distributor.

As nodes arrive and demand on the system increases, the total capacity of the system also increases, and the likelihood of failure decreases.

If one peer on the network fails to function properly, the whole network is not compromised or damaged.

In contrast, in a typical client – server architecture, clients share only their demands with the system, but not their resources.

In this case, as more clients join the system, fewer resources are available to serve each client, and if the central server fails, the entire network is taken down.

The decentralized nature of P2P networks increases robustness because it removes the single point of failure that can be inherent in a client-server based system.