how to create file sharing system like Microsoft Groove

Question

Hi developers, I need to create file sharing and chatting system like Microsoft Groove under .NET (c#). But i don't know how to create it.

I had a questions:

1. Groove using peer 2 peer? if you know about this, tell me any library.

2. Groove is using what service?

3. Groove is using what technology for network service?

Answer 1

Since Vista Microsoft has included a p2p library in Windows, so you don't have to write the whole library yourself: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756984.aspx

Answer 2

From C# your easiest option is Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Doing a Google search for WCF P2P resulted in some useful starting points. It is possible to use the native APIs from .NET code but this is going to be a lot more involved than going the Peer Channel route with WCF.

Here is a sample chat application that you can take a look at. I don't know what Groove uses, but it was around before Vista so they may have written their own P2P networking code.

Answer 3

Groove Networks wrote their own code, largely based on their own patented algorithms for peer-to-peer communications. After Groove took over Microsoft, (or was it the other way round), some of their ideas surfaced in the technology called now called FeedSync (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeedSync)

You might consider the FeedSync framework a good place to start playing with this texchnology, or if you want to make use of a set of services provided by Microsoft, then the Mesh technology might work for you: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sync/default.aspx