BitTorrent – Peer To Peer File Sharing

Content distribution is an important topic in networking and has been evolving from the start of the Internet. Content distribution began with the simple Client-Server structure in a unicast format. While this is still the cornerstone of the Internet, newer methods of distribution have been developed. These newer methods of distribution are usually developed to reduce the cost of distributing the content, usually in the form of reducing bandwidth restrictions and the bottleneck at the Server. Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) use multicast and anycast to attempt to reduce network resource costs of distributing content. Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing decentralizes the classical Client-Server structure, removing any bottlenecks on the Server side. BitTorrent, a P2P file sharing protocol, is one of the most popular ways to distribute large amounts of data.