Distributed Computing Systems: P2P versus Grid Computing Alternatives

Grid and P2P systems have become popular options for large-scale distributed computing, but their popularity has led to a number of varying definitions that are often conflicting. Taxonomies developed to aid the decision process are also quite limited in their applicability. While some researchers have argued that the two technologies are converging [1], in this paper, we develop a unified taxonomy along two necessary distributed computing dimensions and present a framework for identifying the right alternative between P2P and Grid Computing for the development of distributed computing applications.