P2P places more load on the aggregated systems and networks of the Internet taken as a whole than if the same content were being distributed in a centralized manner. Using P2P may make sense and, perhaps ISPs should support P2P traffic for any of a number
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This blog takes a deep (and often skeptical) look at trends big and small in the world of enterprise servers, data centers, and "Yotta-scale" computing. This means also taking into account the myriad of software, networks, and devices that are driving change in (or being driven by) these back-end systems. Stories posted to this blog may also appear on Illuminata's site.
Gordon Haff is a principal IT adviser for Illuminata of Nashua, N.H. Before becoming an IT industry analyst, Gordon held a variety of product-marketing positions at Data General, spanning more than a decade. He's programmed for DOS, Windows, and Linux; builds his own PCs; and holds engineering degrees from MIT and Dartmouth, with an MBA from Cornell. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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P2P networks are "often used to pirate copyrighted material."
Butcher knives are often used to kill people, so we should make them illegal.
Hands are often used to steal real physical items, so we should force
everyone to cut them off. Both of them.
Feet are often used to evade police, so we should force everyone to hack off
both of their feet as well.
CAN'T ANYONE SEE HOW INANE AND STUPID THIS ARGUMENT IS???
- P2P is MORE efficient, and reliable not less...
- by funchords November 21, 2007 9:03 AM PST
- Klaus Mochalski is 100% wrong. P2P puts less strain on backbones because you copy ONLY when necessary. Furthermore, when you do request a file, there is a possibility that some of the pieces that you need exist within the perimeter of your own network -- so getting pieces from there will reduce backbone traffic further. Putting all files on a central server creates a single point of failure, where distributing them gives many alternatives.
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- Efficiency and reliability
- by ghaff November 21, 2007 12:58 PM PST
- As for efficiency, it may be true that you can't make a general statement about what this means for traffic on the (literal) backbone. It does tend to increase overall traffic (and certainly end-node traffic--which is what Mark's post was about), but whether it increases (or decreases) backbone traffic depends on the data distribution and its nature--so that's a fair point.Backbone was probably not the best term in that context.
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(3 Comments)Calling 911? Skype users already know they cannot do that on Skype, whether it is working or not. However, on a distributed P2P telephone system, you have a very redundant system that makes it more likely that a call will complete than going through a central PBX.
The point with respect to reliability was that we know how to ensure reliability of centralized services with mirroring and other forms of redundancy. That people often decline to spend the money to do so for non-critical services is another issue. However, with distributed services, there can be a lot of subtler performance and reliability problems and it's hard to be provably robust. That P2P is reliable enough for many intended purposes doesn't negate the point that we can make centralized services with appropriate redundancy measures more robust if we so choose.