[CAnet - news] P2P: From Internet Scourge to Savior

For more information on this item please visit my blog at 
http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------




[Here is a set of pointers from various sources on the growing phenomena of
P2P applications.  Many network operators and universities are trying to
limit the impact of p2p applications, as only a small number of P2P users
can cause significant traffic congestion on today's networks.  But to my
mind this is an opportunity, rather than problem:  the increasing
computational and storage capability at the edge means we may have to
fundamentally rethink the architecture and business models of the current
Internet.--BSA]


http://gigaom.com/2007/04/15/p2p-now-for-pretty-much-everything/

P2P, now for Pretty Much Everything

[Excerpts from Om Malik's column]

At the dawn of the broadband era, peer-to-peer technology became closely
associated with music file sharing, thanks to programs like Napster and
Kazaa. Later, the emergence of protocols such as BitTorrent linked P2P to
movie and television downloads. Over the years, P2P has found many
legitimate uses and has found a way into everyday life. Why. even Akamai,
which had scoffed at P2P, decided to acquire Red Swoosh.

RawFlow is a 6-year-old company that has developed a peer-to-peer streaming
software platform for sharing live video streams. It is currently developing
a personal broadcasting technology called Selfcast, also based on P2P
technologies.

Nevertheless, the Akamai-Red Swoosh deal, announced last week, prompted me
to think about how pervasive P2P really has become in our lives.

    * P2P telephony: Skypeand its $4.2 billion price tag - that says it all.
    * P2P TV: Joost and Babelgum are just a start. More like Zattoo are
joining the party.
    * Personal P2P: P2P sharing of photos, videos and other files with
family and friends is becoming increasingly common place. The list of
start-ups chasing this nascent market is growing by the month
    * P2P Video Delivery is growing in popularity, especially in places
where 10 megabit/s broadband connections are commonplace.
    * P2P data syncing between computers.
    * Distributed computing is another area where we have seen P2P
technology shine. SETI@Home is a good example.


[From a posting on Dewayne Hendrick's list -- BSA]
<http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/17904/page1/>

New peer-to-peer video-downloading options should please Internet  
users--and stave off a network meltdown.
By Wade Roush



Every few years, someone predicts the imminent collapse of the  
Internet. Bob Metcalfe--Ethernet inventor, 3Com founder, and  
Technology Review patron--famously said at a 1995 Web conference that  
he would eat his words from a pessimistic Infoworld column if the Web  
didn't disappear within a year under the strain of traffic overloads  
and other problems. In April 1997, Metcalfe contritely drank a  
milkshake containing the torn-up bits of his column. In 2004,  
Helsinki University of Technology professor Hannu Kari said spam and  
viruses would kill off the Internet by 2006. The fact that you're  
looking at this website now means Kari was wrong.

The point is that even the sharpest innovators and entrepreneurs have  
often had a hard time seeing how the next hurdle in the Internet's  
growth would be overcome--only to be surprised by some new resource,  
technology, or business idea that emerges in the nick of time. (In  
both 1996-97 and 2005-2006, Internet service providers responded in  
part by adding more bandwidth to their networks.)

But will that pattern hold out forever? The dam-breaking success of  
YouTube and Apple's iTunes Video Store--neither of which existed  
prior to 2005--has unleashed a huge new flow of digital video on the  
Internet, and many consumers now spend hours a day streaming or  
downloading everything from home movies to live sports and prime-time  
TV series. Because video files are so large compared with the Web  
pages and e-mail messages that used to dominate Internet traffic,  
backbone lines are under strain, and backbone operators such as AT&T  
and Verizon and Internet service providers such as Comcast are facing  
new costs they can't easily recoup, given the flat-rate pricing of  
most consumer broadband Internet access plans.

Hui Zhang, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who  
studies broadband networks, says that "2006 will be remembered as the  
year of Internet video. Consumers have shown that they basically want  
unlimited access to the content owners' video. But what if the entire  
Internet gets swamped in video traffic?"

This time around, the Internet may be saved by the unlikeliest of  
rescuers: the builders of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. In the  
minds of many consumers--and many studio executives--P2P networks are  
still synonymous with digital piracy. After all, Napster, Kazaa, and  
other early peer-to-peer networks were playgrounds for copyright  
violators, who downloaded millions of music files they hadn't paid  
for. But today a number of researchers and entrepreneurs are arguing  
that peer-to-peer technology--which allows network members to  
retrieve content by tapping into the hard drives of other members who  
have already downloaded that content--is also great for distributing  
legitimately purchased, copyright-protected music and video. It might  
even lessen the burden on service providers and content distributors.

[snip]


[From a posting on Dewayne Hendrick's list -- BSA]
[Note:  This item comes from reader Jock Gill.  DLH]
Subject: Bootstrapping the Long Tail in Peer to Peer  Systems

You might find this paper of interest.  Jock

<http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/p2p/p2p.pdf>

Bootstrapping the Long Tail in Peer to Peer Systems

Bernardo A. Huberman, HP Labs, Palo Alto, CA 94304  
[email protected]
and Fang Wu, HP Labs, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [email protected]

1 Introduction
The provision of digitized content on-demand to millions of users  
Presents a formidable challenge. With an ever increasing number of fixed and

Mobile devices with video capabilities, and a growing consumer base with  
different preferences, there is a need for a scalable and adaptive way of  
delivering a diverse set of files in real time to a worldwide consumer base.
Providing such varied content presents two problems. First, files should be
accessible in such a way that the constraints posed by bandwidth  
and the diversity of demand is met without having to resort to client server

architectures and specialized network protocols. Second, as new content is  
created, the system ought to be able to swiftly respond to new demand on
specific  content, regardless of its popularity. This is a hard constraint
on any  distributed system, since providers with a finite amount of memory
and bandwidth  will tend to offer the most popular content, as is the case
today with many  peer-to-peer systems.

The first problem is naturally solved by peer to peer networks, where  
Each peer can be both a consumer and provider of the service. Peer to peer  
net-works, unlike client server architectures, automatically scale in  
size as demand fluctuates, as well as being able to adapt to system
failures.  
Examples of such systems are Bittorrent [4] and Kazaa, who account for a
sizable  percentage of all the use of the Internet. Furthermore, new
services like the  BBC IMP,(http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/) show that it is
possible to make media con- tent available through a peer-to-peer system
while respecting digital  rights.
It is the second problem, that of an adaptable and efficient system  
Capable of delivering any file, regardless of its popularity, that we now  
solve. We do so by creating an implementable incentive mechanism that
ensures the  existence of a diverse set of offerings which is in equilibrium
with the  available supply and demand, regardless of content and size.
Moreover, the mechanism  is such that it automatically generates the long
tail of offerings which has  been shown



http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6332098.html
it only takes about 10 BitTorrent users bartering files on a node (of around
500) of traditional shared IP network to double the delays experienced by
everybody else.


-------------------------------------
To SUBSCRIBE:
send a blank e-mail message to
[email protected]

To UNSUBSCRIBE:
send a blank email message to
[email protected]
-------------------------------------

These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.

-----------
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.canarie.ca/~bstarn
skype: pocketpro
SkypeIn: +1 614 441-9603


_______________________________________________
news mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.canarie.ca/mailman/listinfo/news