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Summary: very good introduction to p2p research
Review: i read this book as a quick way to get up to speed on the current state of peer-to-peer research in preparation for further work in the area for my masters thesis. although there is a lot of research going on in this area, this book is a good way to get acquainted with some of the key issues and projects in the area. since it is not super-technical it is a quick read and this is important because it allows you suss out the terrain without wasting a lot of time.
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Summary: dasper
Review: I've been a big fan of O'Reilly & Associates for years because of their consistent ability to provide highly readable and accurate technical books, often about technologies I find fascinating and useful. To me the editorial bias of most of those books is simply the love of the technology they describe. But O'Reilly has increasingly become a force in the organization and direction of new technologies. And it is that aspect of this book on P2P which has made the biggest impression on me. This book is different from the many other O'Reilly books I've read because it discusses the publisher's own ideas about P2P and involvement with it.
Rating:
Summary: dasper
Review: I've been a big fan of O'Reilly & Associates for years because of their consistent ability to provide highly readable and accurate technical books, often about technologies I find fascinating and useful. To me the editorial bias of most of those books is simply the love of the technology they describe. But O'Reilly has increasingly become a force in the organization and direction of new technologies. And it is that aspect of this book on P2P which has made the biggest impression on me. This book is different from the many other O'Reilly books I've read because it discusses the publisher's own ideas about P2P and involvement with it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent coverage of p2p
Review: In 2000, O'Reilly surveyed the field of peer-to-peer computing, and published this book. It has an excellent description of the key concepts behind all the major p2p implementations then existing. Napster, of course, was the best known. But Seti@home, Gnutella, Jabber, Freenet, Free Haven and others are also explained. These are compared with each other, so that you can see the different emphases and strengths of each.Since the book's release, p2p usage has grown, and the attendant controversy about the downloading of copyrighted material, mainly music, has continued unabated. Napster in its original incarnation has gone. But other p2p networks, like Kazaa, have arisen. Another type of p2p network has also emerged - for social networks. Companies include Friendster, Tribe.net, Ryze and others. Of course, these aren't covered in the book, because they did not exist when it was written. But as a measure of how comprehensive the book is, one of its chapters describes the key work on social networks and encompasses this entire group of companies. The technical level is moderate throughout the book. While XML, SOAP and cryptography are described, you only need slight familiarity with these topics. The discussion involving them tends to be at a higher level of usage.
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Summary: Excellent Persepctive on Peer to Peer
Review: Peer to Peer Networking is seen in some circles to be the "next big thing" for the ever changing Internet. After reading the essays in this book, it's hard not to disagree. The series of essays contained here describe different features or "issues" about this new technology, which actually has been around in some shape since the early days of the 'Net. Among the "companies" using Peer to Peer described here are the now famous Napster, Gnutella, and Freenet. Each essay describes peer to peer features and why this technology seems to have a bright future. Every time one turns around it seems there is a new "cutting-edge" technology and time will tell of course whether P2P was just a passing fad. Still this book is an excellent one for getting a good read on just what this technology entails.
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Summary: Groundbreaking
Review: Peer-to-peer technology is a buzzword today., mainly because of all the publicity about Napster. The picture people get about this technology is not pretty; the main benefits seem to be free music and anonimity, and the core competencies seem to be superdistribution and the lack of any control. On September 2000 O'Reilly organized a peer-to-peer summit with a number of experts (computer scientists from MIT and AT&T Labs, CTO's, architects, human rights activists). This book is basically an offspring of this summit, with contributions from many of those experts. One of the goals of this summit was to answer the question what peer-to-peer really is, and about what technologies we should think when we hear the term. There are also a lot of lessons to be learned from well known applications as Napster, Gnutella and Freenet. One of the outcomes is peer-to-peer is much more than file sharing; we also can think of projects regarding Web Services (Bluetooth, .NET, JINI), instant messaging, Web hyperlinking and networked devices. Core benefits include "more effective use of Internet resources through edge services" and "overcoming barriers to formation of ad-hoc communities and working groups". Peer-to-peer should be positioned as a natural next step in the development of the Internet. After setting the context the book continues with chapters about a number of systems (already developed or still on the drawing table): SETI@home , Jabber, Mixmaster Remailers, Gnutella, Freenet, Red Rover, Publius and Free Haven. The focus of these chapters is on high level requirements and design choices: what works, what does not work and why? The last part of the book contains descriptions of core technologies and research areas. These chapters deal with questions as performance and scalability, search strategies, accountability, trust, reputation and security. The approach of these topics is scientific: performances issues in Gnutella and Freenet are illustrated mathematically via graph theory. In the chapter about accountability several techniques for digital payments are described for ensuring accountable behavior amongst peers. These chapters also show that peer-to-peer is not an isolated area, many of the requirements also apply to other Internet related areas: think about encrypting e-mail or authentication of users by a server ("How do I make sure that only persons above 21 years old can look at my Website" or "How can I trust the person I am dealing with at an auction site"). This book is clearly not meant for developers. This is a book for people who want to be up to date about developments in computer science. Hereby I am thinking about CTOs, architects and researchers. In my opinion this is a groundbreaking work about a new and important topic that has many people's attention. The level is high and academic, and many of the technologies actually would require a separate book. All the articles are well written and of good quality. I want to place one critical remark however. One of Tim O'Reilly's goals was to show the world that peer-to-peer is much more than violation of copyrights, or other activities that might be viewed as subversive in one way. However, in this book applications for file-sharing and censorship resistant publishing are overrepresented. There are many categories of worthy projects not included, such as "Servers/Services as Peers", "Devices as Peers" and "Writable Web". In order to get peer-to-peer on the map as more than a fringe technology , we also need attention for applications that are more garden variety, affecting our daily live or useful within a business context. Hereby I am also thinking about UDDI, JINI, Bluetooth, .NET and WebDAV.
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Summary: Eloquent Arguments for Encouraging Internet Peer Connections
Review: The original vision of the Internet was as a tool to allow individuals to partner with others to accomplish more, both by being able to access information more easily, but also by exchanging ideas more rapidly and freely. Peer-to-peer (p2p) as described in this book is defined as any systems structure for the Internet "outside the DNS . . . [with] significant or total autonomy from central servers." Conceptually, "peer-to-peer is a way to decentralizing not just features, but costs and administration as well." Basically, personal computers have unused memories and processors that can be added together to provide giant data banks and processors beyond what exists in one location at tiny cost (less than 1 percent of the alternative) and with richer content. Systems that optimize that untapped potential will accelerate human progress enormously. Think of this as creating a global mind for a specialized purpose. P2P solutions are then, by definition, killer apps compared to most of the server-based solutions. This book challenges the tendency to turn the Internet into a slightly interactive version of television for the purpose of selling products and services offered by large companies. The essays here encourage developers to "return content, choice, and control to ordinary users." The book mostly avoids the question of how to solve the technical search problems of how to do that, but does consider many methods that create communities of limited-purpose interaction (like Napster, SETI@home, Jabber, and Red Rover). The book is not detailed enough to guide software developers, but is helpful for those who want to think about future developments in the Internet from a sociological or public policy perspective. Tim O'Reilly's essay about p2p as a "meme" (a self-replicating idea, with full credit to Richard Dawkins) is the centerpiece of the book. I suspect that I would have gotten 90 percent of the benefit of reading the whole book by simply looking at that one essay. I suggest that you start with that essay, which explores making p2p the primary operating system for the Internet. The advantages are that more information will be shared, progress will be faster, and the experience will be more interesting. Dan Bricklin also focuses on the purposes of p2p. "Is the data I want in the database?" He points out (rightly) that p2p is just the associated plumbing to get you the data you want more effectively. Clearly, the barrier is that laws about intellectual property are obsolete in a p2p environment (as Napster's original success in free copying of music demonstrated). Clearly, people need to get paid for intellectual property, so a new system needs to be developed. I suspect that like the copy machine, this technology will overrun the legal barriers in the meantime. A weakness of this book is that it does not propose solutions for this issue. As I write this, Napster is struggling to comply with various court orders that are slowing down music exchanges. Unlike many books that espouse a new way of interacting, the essays in the book are realistic about anticipating a world that will continue to have servers but will also allow p2p interactions. Even Napster provides that combination now. As a technical solution, the two are likely to be intertwined in the future. When you are done with this book, you should also think about ways that you can structure work differently. How can you recruit "volunteers" who will find that the benefits of helping you exceed the costs for them? Such voluntary virtual organizations should become the best way for accomplishing many of our key thinking and problem-solving tasks. Move beyond the dated paradigms of b2b and b2c to create the highest potential for the future!
Rating:
Summary: Good overview of peer-to-peer applications/business models
Review: The selection of writers and essays in this book provide excellent reference material to someone who wishes to learn more about this not-so-new technology. Divided into three sections: Context and Overview; Projects; and Technical Topics. Personally, I would have appreciated more about either the business models or technology details or both. I found the second section much less relevant, as I already had a good feel for all the projects mentioned. I was clearly not the intended audience in this respect.
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Summary: Excellent read, but..
Review: This book gives an excellent overview of peer-to-peer concepts, for a computer scientist I would consider it to be a must-read^. However, if you expect a book with lots of algorithmic details* of how scalable P2P services can be made, you may become disappointed. This book has the main emphasis on the conceptual side. I hereby challenge the authors to create a volume II - "Algorithmic Issues of P2P services" (^ together with Gamma's "Design Patterns", Cormen et al's "Introduction to Algorithms", Michalewicz et al's "Modern Heuristics", and a few more) (* e.g. for crypto, redundancy, data/user duplicate detection, and intelligent message caching/routing)
Rating:
Summary: War Stories
Review: This book is a collection of war stories on the use of peer-to-peer technology. The papers are informal and only superficially technical. The book would best be used as source of papers that can be used to introduce the topic to managers and non-technical personnel. For this purpose it is well worth the money. However it is not one that I would recommend for someone with an interest in learning about specific technical issues. The book is good for its ostensible purpose and would be a worthy addition to any company's technical library. or design methodologies in general. It is well worth reading.
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