 What is this all about? |
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Peer-to-peer technology, the ability to work with and share files directly from computer to computer,
is one of the latest buzzes in the computer industry. Unfortunately, the term "peer-to-peer" (or P2P) has quickly become
a synonym for copyright infringement, and most people think of non-commercial file sharing applications like
Freenet and Gnutella.
The technology isn't new, however, and it could be argued that the Internet was a peer-to-peer
network when it was first created for the use of academics. From technical point of view,
P2P is about sharing resources, with the permission of the content provider and the end user.
P2P is causing the Internet community to change its focus from pure Web-based applications to those
that connect directly over protocols other than HTTP.
Here is the Wikipedia definition for peer-to-peer:
"Generally, a peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network refers to any network that does not have fixed clients and servers,
but a number of peer nodes that function as both clients and servers to the other nodes on the network.
This model of network arrangement is contrasted with the client-server model.
Any node is able to initiate or complete any supported transaction.
Peer nodes may differ in local configuration, processing speed, network bandwidth, and storage quantity.
Popular examples of P2P are file sharing-networks".
The benefit of peer-to-peer networking is to utilize the powerful desktop computers for more than just Internet surfing
or other simple tasks. Modern PCs have very fast processors , vast memory, and large hard disks, which are being utilized
only partially for the common computing tasks. All this powerful hardware can easily act as both a client and server
for many types of applications, if the appropriate software is available.
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| The technology |
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P2P companies like Napster have generated enormous interest in the technology, but until recently,
P2P applications have not been practical for businesses. The great promise of peer-to-peer networking for business
is that companies will be able to build distributed office solutions with remote collaboration tools
by forming problem solving teams dynamically.
BigSpeed peer-to-peer protocol creates virtual private peer-to-peer networks for small groups, typically up to several tens of desktops.
Based on the traditional peer-to-peer technology, BigSpeed peer-to-peer protocol provides totally secure data transfer through
powerful on-the-fly encryption. The term "virtual private" means that, although all BigSpeed peers are physically connected
to the Internet, they are logically connected to one private network.
Setting up a closed community is provided by two factors:
1. All members are connected to each other via the same indexing service, which means the same BigSpeed hub.
2. All members of the group send and receive all information encrypted with the same secret key.
Although the other computers connected to the Internet can send IP packets to our peers, they will be unrecognizable,
because they are not encrypted with the right (secret) key.
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| The bottom line |
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BigSpeed peer-to-peer protocol establishes a secure peer-to-peer backbone. All services provided by
BigSpeed peer-to-peer protocol are built on top of this framework, eliminating the need to
create new communication protocols for the new applications.
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Virtual private peer-to-peer over the Internet