Towards adaptive, resilient and self-organizing peer-to-peer systems

Abstract. Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems are characterized by decentral-ized control, large scale and extreme dynamism of their operating en-vironment. Developing applications that can cope with these character-istics requires a paradigm shift, placing adaptation, resilience and self-organization as primary concerns. In this note, we argue that complex adaptive systems (CAS), which have been used to explain certain biologi-cal, social and economical phenomena, can be the basis of a programming paradigm for P2P applications. In order to pursue this idea, we are de-veloping Anthill, a framework to support the design, implementation and evaluation of P2P applications based on ideas such as multi-agent and evolutionary programming borrowed from CAS.