Bandwidth-hungry P2P applications could be a threat to
mission-critical applications
The increasing demand for easy, swift and timely knowledge sharing
within an enterprise means that peer-to-peer (P2P) is sure to take
off in Europe over the next year or so.
A recent report from analyst firm Gartner Group predicted that by
the end of 2002 50% of users worldwide will be signing on to at
least two P2P applications for business reasons.
Indeed, so great will be the take-up of P2P applications, that the
report forecasts problems for service providers and users alike.
For the user, the advent of P2P technology raises issues of
security and privacy. And it could be argued that it may reduce the
need for ISP services as it will do away with the need for a
central server, and deliver services itself.
That said, ISPs may benefit due to the potentially huge amount of
traffic generated as users become providers rather than mere
surfers under the influence of P2P.
Taking this one stage further, P2P as a technology is symbolic of
the extent to which the Internet is threatening to take over
corporate networks. This threat is enhanced by the slowly
increasing popularity of the ASP model and the increasing reliance
on the Internet as a research and communication medium (for
example, virtual private network or Voice Over IP).
This creates a real headache for the corporate IT manager due to
potential (and actual) disruption caused to mission-critical
applications. As one IT watcher puts it, P2P appears to "open the
door to chaos".
Added to that headache is the issue of cost. This increase in
bandwidth-heavy corporate and private Internet and P2P use creates
an almost automatically perceived need to rush out and "panic buy"
expensive, additional bandwidth to ensure mission-critical
applications continue to run unhindered by delays and bottlenecks.
There is now so much Internet traffic - including P2P - that unless
the enterprise network is properly managed, mission-critical,
time-sensitive applications will be adversely affected, and the
business will suffer no matter how much bandwidth is available.
This has already happened in US universities where campus networks
have been swamped by students downloading MP3s from Napster and
similar sites.
Why? Because a P2P network gains in bandwidth-greediness and
network domination with every new user. This has resulted in
mission-critical application performance being hampered and has
created other technical and political problems.
There is always the option of prohibiting use of P2P technology
and/or Internet use in the workplace, but this shared use of
resources is very productive and any kind of restriction or ban on
use will have an undoubted negative impact on company culture. Very
few enterprises want to control employees' access rights.
In the P2P world, it's essential that network managers make network
performance a priority. This can be effectively achieved by, for
example, ensuring there is a performance infrastructure in place
over the existing network infrastructure. This will provide
visibility and measurability into network activity. Ultimately, it
will enable network managers to prevent P2P and Internet traffic
from taking over. However, P2P technology (and the increasing use
of the Internet) can only be seen as a positive and forward-looking
step, which should be encouraged to improve all aspects of
business.
P2P technology enables not only the sharing of resources but also
allows computers within an enterprise to share physical resources
such as disk space or processing power directly with any other P2P
networked computer. I believe that through careful and planned
network management P2P technology will become beneficial rather
than harmful and the Internet will not take over.
Arnold Pijpers is vice-president Europe, Middle East and Africa
at Packeteer