Gossip protocol

A gossip protocol is a style of computer-to-computer communication protocol inspired by the form of gossip seen in social networks. Modern distributed systems often use gossip protocols to solve problems that might be difficult to solve in other ways, either because the underlying network has an inconvenient structure, is extremely large, or because gossip solutions are the most efficient ones available.

The term epidemic protocol is sometimes used as a synonym for a gossip protocol, because gossip spreads information in a manner similar to the spread of a virus in a biological community.