Abstract: A mechanism for point-to-multipoint file transfer utilizes a pipeline architecture established through a set of networking messages to transfer a file from a source node to a plurality of recipient nodes. Each node in the pipeline can utilize a redundant connection to a next nearest neighbor in the pipeline to decrease the time required to recover from a node failure.

Abstract: A peer to peer discovery mechanism based on the ubiquitous TCP/IP and UDP/IP standards requires no global network configuration to allow the addition and removal of peers from the network. The resulting network architecture is scalable to a large number of processors and together with an automated Peer Voting mechanism which elects a “Prime” Peer at runtime provides a platform for use with distributed computing applications.