B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

B2B to P2P Evolution 471
Many major companies, including Intel (Peer-to-peer Working Group),
Sun Microsystems (Juxtapose) and Microsoft (.Net) are inputting
extensive resources to build a future based on this vision.
16.1.2. What is P2P?
Peer-to-peer computing is the direct sharing of computer resources and
services between systems, without the use of a centralized server. P2Pbased
architecture eliminates the need for setting up and managing a
centralized infrastructure.
Put simply, P2P clients talk to one another directly, without going
through a central server. The client can range from a large multiprocessor
server to a small desktop computer to a handheld device.
It involves file sharing, exchange of processing cycles, cache storage,
messaging, Web services and distributed services. This architecture
harnesses the typically unused, high desktop computing power of
each individual computer in the entire enterprise. It is the collective
power of so many client nodes, also acting as servers that redefines
the effective utilization of resources. The most popular example of
a P2P-based application is Napster, although it is not business-tobusiness.
16.1.3. What is a peer group?
A peer group can be defined as a collection of peers that agree to a
common set of rules to generate, publish and exchange information. It
is up to the group members to decide the governance rules like
membership policy from public (open to all) to private (highly secured
— open only by invitation) group.
16.1.4. Features of a P2P application
The most basic requirements of any P2P application are peer discovery
and peer communication. A P2P application has the following typical
features: