The Peer-to-Peer is a model which try to provide a faster and more reliable service than the traditionnal client/server model
in some case of application. The idea is to use with more efficiency the set of ressources that represent each peer
of the network (a LAN, Internet...). Napster, Gnutella are examples of this type of application.
Indeed, at the moment, Internet is composed of few hot spots by which go through a big percentage of the
Internet's trafic. This fact has two major consequences:
Perpetual need of more technology to help these points to be reliable (Until when will they be able to?)
A evident want of balance of Internet's ressources usage (bandwidth, storage and CPU)
So, the generalization of client and server notions enables new capabilities for each peer. In fact, it enables them to take
turns in being server or client. The problem key is in our capacity of making a reliable and efficient communication protocol between each peer.
The collaboration between peers must be possible whatever may be the type of equipment, programmation language...
To abstract this problem of systems' heterogeneity, Sun Microsystems offers a development platform for this new type of applications
called JXTA. This platform defines a set of protocols and messages to enable every type of equipments (gateway, PC, mobile phones, PDA but also watches...)
to communicate with others.
Microsoft, as far as it is concerned, has a different vision from Sun Microsystems' one because it uses the P2P more to make life easier for the user than to offer
completely new services. Indeed, with .NET My Services, Microsoft do not offer a platform to build new applications running thanks to collaboration between peers.
.NET My Services is a future standard which will enable existing applications to share ressources. For example, an airport reservation program will be able
to talk with your agenda to update your timetable. So, it is a standard which will mainly enable the user to manage his data with more efficiency.
Finally, this standard is only available for the Windows environment.
In conclusion, even if Peer-to-Peer concepts have been existing for a long time, we can see that their usage is very recent. Besides, it is made possible today,
thanks to the number of connected stations. Nevertheless, we can notice that the application of these concepts is not the same for all protagonists.
The presentation of this site is composed of three parts:
A brief summary of P2P concepts and different application models.
A presentation of the JXTA Platform developed by Sun Microsystems which the first version has the OpenSource license since April 2001.
A presentation of the Microsoft's vision with its platform, ".NET My Services", which should be available at the beginning of 2002.