mesh network

A network in which there is no clear difference between clients and servers.
Instead each computer is a peer and does processing, data storage and routing
of network traffic. In the ideal mesh network data is content addressable,
such that it may be seeded by any peer, and data ownership is regulated via
cryptography.

Due to the lack of bottlenecks (servers with limited capacity), in theory
mesh networks are far more scalable than client/server, and may be the
eventual form that the internet takes. The existence of giant and highly
inefficient data centers within the current cloud computing paradigm is
really an attempt to solve the limited server capacity problem, but this
may eventually be superceded by mesh.

For optimal performance the apps within a mesh network should work in a
peer-to-peer manner using data which is content addressable. Attempting to
run an app designed for client/server within a mesh usually results in
very poor performance. Since so much current software is designed for
client/server (often subconsciously, since the paradigm is hegemonic)
this is why mesh networks currently remain a minority topic.

Existing examples of large mesh networks are freifunk and guifinet. Common
mesh protocols are batman, BMX, OLSR and Babel.

Contrast with client server.