US Patent 7756924 Peer communities

A software architecture that permits for a unified mechanism for interfacing with multiple peer groups. The architecture includes multiple peer group interfaces, each facilitating communication between computing systems in a corresponding peer group. In addition, a perhaps configurable number and type of service modules are configured to use the peer group interfaces to facilitate communication between peer groups in a manner that facilitates the service. A peer community application program interface is configured to allow one or more peer applications to enlist the services of the plurality of services by interfacing with the peer community application program interface.