B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

470 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
16.1. Why Peer-to-Peer?
Throughout this book, the emphasis has been on efficient use of the
three prime resources of the Internet — information, bandwidth and
computing resources — for all current and future B2B applications.
However, with the current client-server type architectures of B2B
applications, which have relatively fewer servers and many clients,
these resources are grossly underutilized.
In this final chapter of the book, we will discuss a new revolution,
peer-to-peer (P2P) computing that could change radically the business
models, applications and enterprise technology management approaches.
Peer-to-peer computing based architecture allows for decentralized
application design, moving from centralized server models to a distributed
model where each peer, independent of software and hardware platforms,
can benefit and profit from being connected to millions of other peers.
In such architectures, clients and servers have a lateral relationship,
rather than the traditional vertical relationship, giving the whole peer
group tremendous processing power, storage space and network
bandwidth. This revolutionary change allows every networked machine
to connect to another machine, fully leveraging the previously unused
resources and changing the B2B landscape.
16.1.1. Let your imagination run wild
Imagine a world in which billions and billions of electronic devices, all
part of peer networks, seamlessly exchange messages and run applications
among themselves. Imagine a world in which there is no need to load
any software on computers, PDAs, cell phones. Imagine freedom from
permanent IP addresses, domain names and registration with domain
name servers. Imagine fully utilizing the worldwide computing resources
of approximately 300 million PCs with average processing power of
300 MHz and 3 GB drives on average. Imagine access to all the net
connected PCs with 90 billion MHz of processing power and 300
thousand terabytes of storage.
P2P can make this fantasy come true. This is surely much bigger
than the Internet revolution.