A networked application in which both communicating parties are seen as equals. For applications, such as file sharing, peer-to-peer networks are ad-hoc networks of communicating processes which are created for the purpose of exchanging data. They are distinguished from the traditional client-server architecture only in the sense that there is no fixed IP address which clients go to to request a service. The actual connection and exchange of data will probably still use TCP and/or UDP or may even use an application protocol such as FTP or HTTP. Depending on the nature of the peer-to-peer application, either peer may take on the role of client or server. For example a peer will be a client when requesting data from the network but may become a server later when another peer requests the same data from the network.

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