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All together now
Thursday, November 09 2000
by Emmet Cole


Information is power, and now a set of emerging technologies that enables more
connectivity between computer networks could mean more information -- and more
power -- for computer users everywhere.

Advocates say we're on the verge of the absolute democratisation of information:
a digital utopia, they claim, where your Internet connection brings you all the
knowledge you need by connecting you to all the resources that carry it. And
thanks to some new technologies it could all take place away from the watchful
eye of any central authority.



The central technology at work here is peer-to-peer networking. It may sound like
something that takes place in the House of Lords, but it's not at all
old-fashioned. 



A peer-to-peer network is one in which each workstation has equivalent
capabilities and responsibilities. This differs from the traditional
client/server and Web architectures, in which some computers are dedicated to
serving the others. When you request a file over the Internet it is typically
retrieved from a public Web server. Peer-to-peer networking means that
file-transfers can take place directly without relying on server computers; and
if one part of the network is shut down, the rest will keep running.



The Internet could conceivably become one giant computer through peer-to-peer
networking, with important consequences that go beyond file trading and into the
realm of copyright, intellectual property and personal freedom.



Peer-to-peer infrastructures aren't the sole preserve of copyright-infringing
anarchists however. 



Groove, a new product from the creator of Lotus Notes, is new Internet
communications software that allows people to make direct connections for
real-time interaction. Groove offers a computing platform that can be used for
building peer-to-peer computing business applications, which allow the enterprise
to connect instantly with partners and customers in a secure and immediate
interactive environment. 



Groove's open-architecture platform fully supports standard data formats,
protocols, APIs, and development tools, so applications can be developed with a
minimum of time and investment. 



It is a peer-to-peer application that resides on a local machine.



The Jini technology infrastructure, from Sun Microsystems, is a system
architecture that joins machines on which Java programming language objects are
running. Jini technology enables such objects to work together as though they
were on a single, very powerful computer. 



"Jini abstracts the physical connectivity from the job at hand. Services such
as applications register themselves on the network and announce their
functionality to the other elements. Since it's Java-based it can be widely
employed," Simon O'Gorman, Consultant Systems Engineer, Horizon Open Systems
Ltd, told ElectricNews.Net. 



When the 'use-anywhere', Java language first appeared there was talk of a
paradigm shift. Many expected Java to dominate software development completely
within a year or two. But paradigm shifts take time: there are legacy systems
that cannot be abandoned or upgraded and education and training is needed to
provide qualified developers to ensure the technology's practicability and
availability. Mundane concerns like limited bandwidth and technological readiness
will curb the chances of a futuristic peer-to-peer society coming anytime soon.



Many believe that business adoption is necessary for the peer-to-peer concept to
be accepted by the mainstream masses. It is probably only when business fully
embraces the peer-to-peer concept that it will develop sufficiently to overcome
today's technological barriers. 



It sounds like the perfect open computer architecture, but there are inherent
disadvantages. 



Because peer-to-peer networking replaces reasonably efficient client-server
transactions with many-to-many packet flurries, network efficiency is drastically
reduced. Further, a fully decentralised model means that there's no central
location to build a business from.



Then there's the question of trust: do we really want to be interconnected? Some
information is confidential and there are simply some people you don't want to
communicate with for one reason or another. The prospect of absolute connectivity
is probably more appealing than the reality.  



MAKING LIGHT WORK



Distributed computing is another factor behind the rapidly changing face of
modern computing and informational structures. 



This is a form of information processing in which work is performed by separate
computers linked through a communications network. Fully distributed computing
has separate computers working individually on small fragments of a larger task.




Intel uses the processing power that is left redundant on various machines in
various locations when employees have gone home for the night. Employees submit
projects to the system and several hundred workstations perform the tasks
overnight based on priority. 



Intel estimates that it has saved USD500m in computer purchase and support costs
over the past decade by employing a distributed strategy.



Despite some doubts about its viability, many believe the technology hurdles to
distributed computing may be on the verge of disappearing. 



Improved network capacity, bandwidth and high-speed Internet connections in homes
and offices has made computer connections more efficient and VPN software has
made it secure. Since most of the processing is done on machines and not on the
network (unlike peer-to-peer) distributed computing is less affected by
technological limitations.

 

The distributed computing model will probably find acceptance primarily within
the confines of a single organisations rather than as an Internet-wide phenomenon
using thousands of unsecured computers. A closed environment, such as an
educational institution or research lab, allows for greater control over the
variables than a mass-market consumer deployment. 



Again, it is the vast differences between computer platforms, software versions
and numerous other irregularities, that make widespread use of distributed
computing impractical for now.



Distributing processing works if multiple computers performing a complex task can
accomplish as much as a single supercomputer. That is still a matter for debate
amongst the experts, but in the meantime new distributed networks keep appearing.




The potential for file-transfer, dissemination of knowledge, communication,
copyright-infringement and hacking are massive via these new structures and
technologies. In terms of where it will eventually lead us, it seems that most
experts agree that technological constraints coupled with security concerns will
prevent a digital utopia from coming soon. But all agree that the times they are
a changin'. 



The battle between Napster and the giants of the music industry is testimony to
the fears of the established order and the potential dominance of the new. And
recent events indicate the most likely future for Napsteresque technologies.
Napster allows music enthusiasts to search and browse for MP3 files from the
computers of other Napster users who are on-line and exchange songs for free in
MP3 format. Napster calls it "sharing music on a person-to-person,
non-commercial basis."



The music industry couldn't agree. In July, US District Judge Marilyn Patel in
California placed an injunction on the Napster service, pending a trial in which
the service was to be charged with copyright infringement. 



Now the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether to shut Napster
down even before the trial begins later this year. 



"It's clear that a better music-industry strategy would be not to ban Napster's
technology, but to make it their own," Jerome Kuptz, a Gnutella protocol
contributor, claimed in a recent edition of Wired magazine. Exactly that happened
early this month, when German media giant Bertelsmann announced a "strategic
alliance" (and an investment of USD100m) with Napster. Bertelsmann subsidiary
BMG was one of four US music companies involved in the lawsuit to have Napster
shut down. Bertelsmann has withdrawn its suit.



As to the future: "We're going to find a huge upsurge in awareness of
peer-to-peer technology," Donal McCarthy, Vice-President, Multichannel
E-business, Ebeon, told ElectricNews.Net. 



"We're going to find two key types of peer-to-peer application over the next
while, one that uses a central server to facilitate the sharing of information
(Napster, for example) and one that doesn't have that central server and is truly
peer to peer (Groove, for example). I think that we're in the first generation of
this technology. We are also seeing the development of business models within the
business-to-business arena too. I think that Jini and Groove will have a big part
to play here. Peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing solutions will become more popular
as business-to-business relationships become centered on the internal expertise
of each company."



Emmet Cole is at