Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing represents the next revolution in the computing age. Web Services standardization will provide the means for P2P architecture to be broadly adopted by companies for enterprise and business-to-business application integration.Peer-to-peer technology, business processes, applications

Radu Lixandroiu

English

Research Papers in Economics

 
 
IT BASED INTEGRATIION BUSINESS PROCESSES 
 
 
Lect. Univ. dr. Radu Lixandroiu 
Transilvania University, Braşov 
 
 
Abstract: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing represents the next revolution in the computing age. 
Web Services standardization will provide the means for P2P architecture to be broadly 
adopted by companies for enterprise and business-to-business application integration.  
 
Keywords: Peer- to- peer technology; business processes; applications. 
 
 
1.  Introduction 
 
In the context of integrating distributed business application systems, the 
vision of redundancy and robustness was not resumed consequently: A changing 
business environment results in new technical developments and increasing demand of 
IT supported execution of business processes. 
A first naive solution to provide an interaction of different systems is shown in 
figure 1. This connection of resources is not able to be maintained properly, as it 
contains too many non-standardized interfaces. 
 
Fig. 1. Heterogeneous IT-Infrastructure 
 
2. Enterprise Application Integration 
 
In time, most enterprises recognized that there has to be found another 
solution for a reliable integration of business applications. the efforts of bringing 
together single systems to one logical unit are paraphrased with the term Enterprise Management & marketing 
 
122
Application Integration (EAI). EAI
1 enables data propagation and business process 
execution throughout the numerous distinct networked applications as if it would be a 
unique global application. It is a distributed transactional approach and its focus is to 
support operational business functions such as taking an order, generating an invoice, 
and shipping a product. 
EAI means a bold venture, as the interaction of business applications is 
restricted due to several constraints: 
• different communication protocols and interfaces, 
• syntactical differences between data of the single applications 
• proprietary semantic of particular system messages, and finally 
• Business modelling methodology differs from the technical implementation. 
 
Certain applications based on P2P technology are already in use for non-
commercial purposes. A prominent example is the exchange of music, movies and 
software via file-sharing networks where single peers communicate directly without 
detouring via any central servers. All the same, some crucial advantages of P2P 
technology (performance, resilience, loadbalancing, etc.) are well-known to many 
software architects. 
A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies primarily 
on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than 
concentrating it in a relatively low number of servers. P2P networks are typically used 
for connecting nodes via largely ad hoc connections. Such networks are useful for 
many purposes. Sharing content files containing audio, video, data or anything in 
digital format is very common, and realtime data, such as telephony traffic, is also 
passed using P2P technology. 
The Gartner Group
2 defines P2P computing as: "characterized by direct 
connections using virtual namespaces, it describes a set of computing nodes that treat 
each other as equals (peers) and supply processing power, content or applications to 
other nodes in a distributed manner, with no presumptions about a hierarchy of 
control". 
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a natural next step in corporate 
information technology (IT) development
3. Companies have over a number of years 
created a complex web of interconnected applications each with its own means of 
communicating with other systems. As new systems are introduced, they too must be 
interfaced with each of these legacy applications, making every step more difficult to 
perform and more costly. These point-to-point (P2P) solutions often lead to an 
inability to capture network events and create problems of untraceable revenue 
leakage and loss or inconsistency of data.  
                                                 
1 www.informatica.com/solutions/resource_center/glossary/default.htm 
2 www.gartner.com 
3 http://www.atosorigin.com  It based integration business processes 
 
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A pure peer-to-peer network does not have the notion of clients or servers, but 
only equal peer nodes that simultaneously function as both "clients" and "servers" to 
the other nodes on the network. This model of network arrangement differs from the 
client-server model where communication is usually to and from a central server. A 
typical example for a non peer-to-peer file transfer is an FTP server where the client 
and server programs are quite distinct, and the clients initiate the download/uploads 
and the servers react to and satisfy these requests. 
The concept of peer to peer is increasingly evolving to an expanded usage as 
the relational dynamic active in distributed networks, i.e. not just computer to 
computer, but human to human. Yochai Benkler
4 has developed the notion of 
commons-based peer production to denote collaborative projects such as free software. 
An important advantage in peer-to-peer networks is that all clients provide 
resources, including bandwidth, storage space, and computing power. Thus, as nodes 
arrive and demand on the system increases, the total capacity of the system also 
increases. This is not true of a client-server architecture with a fixed set of servers, in 
which adding more clients could mean slower data transfer for all users. 
The distributed nature of peer-to-peer networks also increases robustness in 
case of failures by replicating data over multiple peers, and -- in pure P2P systems -- 
by enabling peers to find the data without relying on a centralized index server. In the 
latter case, there is no single point of failure in the system. 
When the term peer-to-peer was used to describe the Napster network, it 
implied that the peer protocol was important, but, in reality, the great achievement of 
Napster was the empowerment of the peers (i.e., the fringes of the network) in 
association with a central index, which made it fast and efficient to locate available 
content. The peer protocol was just a common way to achieve this. 
P2P means a networked structure where the participants interact and share 
resources directly and equitable, “sharing of computer resources and services by direct 
exchange between systems”. In contrast to client/server architectures, P2P networks 
do not include any kind of hierarchical structure. In the following, the term peer 
describes a participant within a P2P network. 
In principle, single peers are independent from certain hardware platforms. 
This comprises a wide range of supposable systems, ranging from PDAs via desktop 
computers up to mainframes. They are all characterized by the following properties: 
•  autonomy 
•  direct exchange 
•  client and server functionality 
 
                                                 
4 Benkler's research focuses on commons-based approaches to managing resources in 
networked environments. He coined the term commons-based peer production to describe 
collaborative efforts, such as free and open source software and Wikipedia which are based on 
sharing of information.) Management & marketing 
 
124
Autonomy is in charge of each single peer at which time it provides which 
service, data or output to the network. Direct exchange. There is no central 
coordinating instance controlling the communication between the peers. Client and 
server functionality: Every peer is able to receive data from other peers as well as to 
provide data for others. 
Using EAI tools and techniques a complete EAI solution tackles and 
improves: 
•  inefficiency of disparate data sources  
•  inflexibility of packaged solutions  
•  complexity of modern IT infrastructure and architectures  
•  high cost of developing and supporting P2P solutions  
 
 
 
 
Fig. 2. Typical P2P
5 applications 
 
 
Communication support is the most common kind of applications for P2P 
networks within enterprises. These applications are characterized by an open and 
highly dynamic number of participants. 
                                                 
5interop-esa05.unige.ch/INTEROP/Proceedings/Interop-ESAScientific/PerPaper/I09-
1%20404.pdf 
 
P2P 
Applications 
Communication 
Support 
Resource Sharing 
Instant  
Messaging 
Video 
Conferencing 
File 
Sharing 
Distributed 
Computing  It based integration business processes 
 
125
Instant messaging  applications are a form of real-time communication 
between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers 
connected over a network. 
Video conferencing.   A videoconference (also known as a 
videoteleconference) is a set of interactive telecommunication technologies which 
allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions 
simultaneously. It has also been called visual collaboration and is a type of groupware.
  
Resource sharing. P2P can use the unused resources and hereby achieve a 
drastic cost reduction, combined with other competitive advantages.  
File sharing provides shared access to any files that are stored by any peer.  
Distributed computing is decentralised and parallel computing, using two or 
more computers communicating over a network to accomplish a common objective or 
task. The types of hardware, programming languages, operating systems and other 
resources may vary drastically. It is similar to computer clustering with the main 
difference being a wide geographic dispersion of the resources 
Assigning the peer-to-peer paradigm to the context of business integration 
means that all systems and components of an enterprise work in a self-organizing 
manner. Using P2P for integration, administration and integration costs can be 
reduced. Others advantages are: 
•  Better reliability. Because is not a client server architecture, when a peer breaks, 
another can replace it. 
•  A non-central topology. Every peer offers at least one service and  several others 
peers may contain the same services. 
•  Scalable performance. The performance of the network depends of the number of 
peers, so is almost unlimited. 
•  Easy configuration. Every peer only contains the business knowledge it requires to 
accomplish its functionality. The configuration of the complete architecture results 
from the sum of the configuration of the single peers. 
 
 
3. Conclusions 
 
Peer-to-peer computing based architecture allows for decentralized application 
design, moving from centralized server models to a distributed model where each 
peer, independent of software and hardware platforms, can benefit and profit from 
being connected to millions of other peers. In such architectures, clients and servers 
have a lateral relationship rather than the traditional vertical relationship, giving the 
whole peer group tremendous processing power and storage space. 
It is worth mentioning that P2P computing is still in an evolving state and 
much needs to be done to overcome complex issues such as security, network 
bandwidth, and architecture designs. Management & marketing 
 
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References 
 
interop-esa05.unige.ch/INTEROP/Proceedings/Interop-ESAScientific/PerPaper/I09-
1%20404.pdf 
www.informatica.com/solutions/resource_center/glossary/default.htm 
http://en.wikipedia.org 
www.gartner.com 
http://www.webservicesarchitect.com/content/articles/samtani05.asp 
http://www.atosorigin.com 
 
 
Note: This paper has been presented to the International Conference on Business Excellence, 
27-28 October, 2006, Braşov, Romania. 
 
 

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