应用程序好友列表和身份验证 - 如何将它们结合在一起

This is a broad but specific question. The idea is that we want to tie in a 'buddy' functionality to a communications app. Very broadly, I believe that the application clients would connect to a central database/auth service which would provide the buddy data and then allow client apps to connect directly to eachother, without passing communications through the server.This is a broad but specific question. The idea