Using a Custom Protocol

Until now we have seen just a few popular protocols that can be used for P2P application development. But there are many more options. You could even choose to write your own protocol for your application.

This might be advantageous for many reasons:

• You might have the flexibility to incorporate the features that you need at the protocol level.

• You might also be able to optimize the protocol to suit your requirements, thus increasing the efficiency and performance of your system.

• You might not find any existing protocol suitable for the application that you are building.

However, you might need to seriously reconsider writing your own protocol if interoperability is or might become one of your requirements. By writing your own protocol, you'll need to put in a lot of effort and resources. You don't want to "re-invent the wheel."