P2P: Next computing wave or more vendor hype?

Communications News, Oct, 2001 by Morris Edwards

Is peer-to-peer computing ready for business?

"Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing could be as important to the Internet's future as the Web browser was to its past." So says Intel's chief technology officer, Patrick Gelsinger.

He's not alone in singing the praises of this computing model. Other proponents see P2P computing as a panacea that will relieve network bottlenecks, unleash vast amounts of computing power from underutilized processors throughout an enterprise, and enhance collaboration within workgroups, both inside and outside the organization.

Are we truly on the threshold of a new computing era, or merely victims of more vendor hype? Intel clearly has a vested interest in supporting P2P computing. It would benefit handsomely if increased PC workloads created demand for ever-faster chips in greater quantities.

Intel, however, has underscored its commitment to P2P with deeds, as well as words. The company has put P2P to work internally, with impressive results. In addition, it has created a working group (www.Peer-to-PeerWG.org) to develop P2P standards, infrastructure and applications, particularly for business environments.

Further, industry heavyweights, such as Sun Microsystems and IBM, have added their considerable prestige to the P2P cause with new products and well-funded initiatives. In August, for example, IBM announced it would invest $4 billion in grid computing, a form of P2P computing that reclaims unused processing cycles in desktop computers (see sidebar "Understanding peer-to-peer computing"). Grid computing harnesses these cycles into a virtual supercomputer, for handling applications that can be broken into small pieces and run on separate machines.

The most visible grid computing initiatives to date have involved volunteers donating computer cycles for number-crunching applications in philanthropic scientific research. IBM's goal is to exploit the power of grid computing beyond its scientific roots and make it practical for all sorts of businesses. Thus far, grid computing has been used commercially for such applications as seismic analysis, weather forecasting, aerospace design and simulation, and risk analysis.

INITIATIVES BY IBM

IBM's investment will go toward building 50 data centers around the world, some of which will support the U.K. National Grid, a consortium of networked computers from eight universities. IBM is also working with an open-source consortium, called Globus, to define and identify security and access protocols, along with bandwidth and latency issues and routing and switching technologies that separate environments within grids.

Sun Microsystems is also donating its distributed computing Grid Engine software to the open-source community. In addition, it has made its JXTA set of protocols, demonstration applications and implementation source code freely available to developers. The software creates a way for all kinds of computers, including laptops and hand-holds, to interact directly without having to rely on an intermediary server.

The JXTA protocols let programs interact with each other, just as HTTP and HTML, for example, let Web browsers work with any Web server. The protocols, however, are designed to be transport-independent, so they can work over IP and non-IP networks. With the protocols, client nodes find each other, organize into peer groups, exchange messages within groups, and manage the nodes forming the group. JXTA works across firewalls by having a client connect to HTTP proxy servers outside the firewall. The client can then communicate securely with the rest of its peer group.

Intel claims to be saving up to $500 million a year with its NetBatch processor-sharing initiative. NetBatch distributes processing tasks among underutilized engineering workstations, shortening the time for developing new processors and reducing outlays for new mainframes. Intel estimates that companies could more than double their computational capabilities if they made use of their PCs as well as they do their servers.

Intel also uses P2P to streamline the distribution of computer-based training materials to employees. The firm's IT department did not want employees to download huge multimedia files from a central server, so it built and deployed an application on every desktop to reduce the network burden. When a user requests a course, the application searches for it on local desktops, gradually widening the search until it finds the closest source.

SECURITY CONCERNS

Besides the benefits of processor sharing and streamlined content distribution, P2P holds considerable potential for improved collaboration, both within and outside the enterprise--for supply-chain applications, for example. A number of startups are using P2P architectures to develop collaborative applications that effectively take Lotus Notes to a higher level. Not surprisingly, one of the most visible, Groove Networks, was founded by the creator of Lotus Notes, Ray Ozzie.

Groove's software lets workers connect to colleagues in virtual environments to share documents and collaborate on activities ranging from event planning to surfing the Internet together. The software informs users when colleagues come online, identifies them and creates a secure area for them to communicate, whether they are on the Internet or a private intranet behind a firewall.