P2P: Napster for your network

It doesn't take much these days to elevate a technology to hot-button status, complete with its own lingo and a catchy buzzword. After a few swiped songs, nifty names such as Napster and MP3 pop up. And suddenly, the phrase peer-to-peer (P2P) is part of our lexicon.

Vendors jumped on the bandwagon, and a raft of P2P and derivative products has followed. Though not all P2P-labeled products employ a pure peer-to-peer approach, most at least embrace the ideas behind the technology. In order to cut through the hype, it's important to know what's part of the P2P fluff and which technologies are effectively taking advantage of P2P's capabilities.

The basic definition of P2P networking describes a network environment in which each client effectively acts as a file server for other connected clients. The client systems can create one-to-one (or sometimes one-to-many) relationships in order to share files or collaborate. This flexible structure differs fundamentally from a traditional client/server architecture, where some computers are dedicated to controlling access to files and communications among network members.

But vendors have been expanding on the P2P definition, giving way to new products that may or may not be genuinely peer-oriented.

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