Starting with Napster and Gnutella, peer-to-peer systems became an integrated part of the Internet fabric attracting millions of users. According to recent evaluations, peer-to-peer traffic now exceeds Web traffic, once the dominant traffic on the Internet. While the most popular peer-to-peer applications remain file sharing and content distribution, new applications such as Internet telephony are emerging.

Within just a few years, the huge popularity of peer-to-peer systems and the explosion of peer-to-peer research have created a large body of knowledge, but this book is the first textbook-like survey to provide an up-to-date and in-depth introduction to the field.

This state-of-the-art survey systematically draws together prerequisites from various fields, presents techniques and methodologies in a principled and coherent way, and gives a comprehensive overview on the manifold applications of the peer-to-peer paradigm. Leading researchers contributed their expert knowledge to this book, each in his/her own specific area.

Lecturers can choose from the wide range of 32 tightly integrated chapters on all current aspects of P2P systems and applications, and thus individually tailor their class syllabi. R&D professionals active in P2P will appreciate this book as a valuable source of reference and inspiration.