Peer-to-Peer Computing: Building Supercomputers with Web Technologies (Computer Communications and Networks) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is more specialised than the more recent text on peer to peer computing, P2P Networking and Applications (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking). The latter is a general survey across the major existing p2p platforms, while Loo describes one particular p2p instantiation.
The book starts off with a quick summary of other p2p networks. But it then focuses on 1 p2p developed by the author. Java is the language of choice, and the narrative goes from a discussion of network programming in java to servlets and thence into the p2p code. It explains how the code can be distributed across machines on TCP/IP. The functionality is a little limited but in some ways, that's the point. Loo shows enough to let an experienced java programmer build out what she wants.
If you have used one of the popular p2p networks, then you'll see a big difference here in the lack of a GUI. The author has left it up to the reader to build one.
There is also a brief discussion about a wireless p2p network running on cellphones. Maybe this has some interest to you?

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Client/Server architecture was first proposed in the late 1980s as an alternative to conventional mainframe systems. Mainframe processing quickly becomes a bottleneck in any information system, but client/server models shift the processing burden to the client computer. Through workload sharing, client/server systems can improve overall efficiency while reducing budgets.Companies are again searching for ways to improve their processing power without further investment in new hardware and software. Many client computers are idle most of the time, and have unused disk space. The next logical step is to maximise the resources of these computers, and the peer-to-peer (P2P) model is the answer. A new and simple peer-to-peer model will be introduced in this book. In it:' Readers will be taught to install peer-to-peer systems which can then manage and distribute the processing power of any number of clients. ' The size of network can range from two to over a million computers. ' The software necessary to implement peer-to-peer systems quickly can be downloaded from the book's website at www.springer.com/1-84628-381-7/The deployment of web technologies will enable individuals and organisations of all sizes to use computers across a network as though it were a single supercomputer to solve complex problems, and after reading this book, readers will be able to install a peer-to-peer system of any size.