Towards a framework for collaborative peer groups

We propose the notion of ´collaborative peer groups´, defined as peer-to-peer overlay networks with controlled membership and multiway communication primitives that offer well-defined semantics. Peers join such groups subject to symmetric acceptance, typically based on functional commonalities and, optionally, group-specific authentication. Collaborative peer group networks share the same properties as other peer-to-peer networks, including full decentralization, symmetric abilities, and dynamism. In addition, however, an extensible set of multiway communication primitives, especially appropriate for such peer groups, is provided and supports operations such as reliable message delivery to proximal group members or a subset thereof, message aggregation from peers, and discovery of peers supporting specific functional attributes. Based on several current and emerging application scenarios, we motivate and present the proposed collaborative peer group model, outline the group management architecture, and describe the initial set of communication primitives to be supported. A discussion of the toolkit development methodology and preliminary experiences concludes the paper.