Computation in Peer-to-Peer Networks

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks are the latest addition to the universe of distributed systems. Emphasizing decentralization and selforganization the P2P networks tend to be more robust and scalable than other forms of distributed systems. Especially in the domain of file-swapping P2P networks seem to outperform other approaches largely due to the anonymity of the participants in the peer-network, low network costs and the inexpensive disk-space. Trying to apply P2P principles in the area of distributed computation was significantly less successful. The much referred SETI@home system and its look-alikes have a far smaller reach and seem to be very limited to single-process multiple data problems. This paper focuses on the issues and existing approaches for using the idle resources in an enterprise network. Using the results of an ongoing study on the amount and quality of idle resources in a local network it explores the key issues in using peer resources for distributed computation. General Terms P2P, Distributed Computation