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P2P in 2001
nihilist_1137 writes: "Zdnet is reporting that P2P is becoming more used in business. "It's now over two years since a few underground song-swapping services put peer-to-peer technology firmly at the forefront of the IT agenda... A look back at some of the more significant P2P stories of 2001 shows that -- although not a new concept -- P2P is starting to assume a very important role in the corporate space, as tech giants scramble to succeed in this new market."" Hard to believe that the Napster battles have been going on for two years now.
Yeah P2P is pretty cool.. A friend of mine has started a web-design business with someone in America (he lives in Australia) and they chat through ICQ (I know its not too good but it allows them to get in touch at a small cost). The guy in America does the graphics while my friend makes the templates and programming, the business is going pretty well as well.
It goes to show you that without P2P software we wouldn't have as many online businesses.
In the old days, our computers talked to each other. I send you a mail, and my VAX sends it to your Sun. Then, everybody put a PC on their desk, and everything was centralized. I send you an email, it goes to my mail server, then to your mail server, then to your computer.
Well, now we're back again! Imagine that! Bring out the VCs! Bring out the patents!
I predict by 2005, we'll see a new form of P2P that uses a Central Peer for maximum performance. Get this folks, we all know how great P2P is, but sometimes it can be inefficient. What if your peer is down? Why not forward your data to a Central Peer, which is a beefy computer that can handle lots of data, and let it worry about the details? So your computers are on the Edge, and the big computer is at the Center of a big conversation. In fact, the Edge computers don't even have to talk to one another, they can just communicate with the Central Peer.
I dub this exciting new invention: Center/Edge computing. I have a patent, and lawyers.
Yawn.