P2P: Person-to-Person Decentralized Work

Gregory Alan Bolcerhttp://www.endtech.com/

info@endtech.com

PhilosophyCentral ArgumentCase StudiesMagi ApproachUnique Applications

Outline

Manage complexityEnsure security of information, controlPerformance and scalability:

Leverage economies of scale What do you have on your desktop? Single CPU

or 1000’s of lightweight ones?Reflects Organizational Boundaries and cost

of crossing organizational boundaries is prohibitive

Tools & technology geared toward centralized solutions.

Philosophy: Centralization

Once you commit, it’s difficult to retractAllows you to prevent forcible removal of

information (good and bad)No central authority to fix errors, but

Increased reliability reduced vulnerability to attack graceful degradation of errors

Low cost of communicationMany decentralized systems have

centralized component

Philosophy: Pure Decentralized

Freenet No form of centralized control or administration. Virtually impossible to forcibly remove information -

doing so distributed content more widely Authors and Readers may remain anonymous Demand-based routing and shared storage

Difficult to determine where information is storedContent is encrypted and distributed Limitation of legal liability; suitcase and closet

First-come, Key-based access scheme; Michael Jordan and Barbie problem

Not controlled or dependent upon Domain Naming system; no permanent Internet connection to publish

Cases: Freenet, Gnutella, Napster

Gnutella No Central Directory Access-based file availability Relies on “I’m Here..” static IP addresses Locational identification

Napster Centralized User ID directory Centralized metadata cache Shared understanding of name and content

Cases: Freenet, Gnutella, Napster

It is difficult to centralize enterprise data Knowing when to prevent access is extremely difficult 70% of enterprise data is not located in a centralized

server or database, it’s on the desktops, laptops, palmtops, PDAs, smartphones,

etc. Need to centrally scale the business logic with access to

information “in place” It is an expensive operation to centralize data,

It’s constantly changing ERP & Large Database systems have discovered this

Human nature, I want to copy it and do it myself Human work not easily segmentable, overlap of work

leads to social and political problems

Philosophy: Decentralized Work

No Event backchannel Web typically client-server Dynamic data generated on demand polling

or refresh for new content Server can’t initiate connection to client

Routing and Naming difficult No named clients other than logging client

environment Dynamic IP and dialups

Not truly Ubiquitous

Problems with Web for Decentralized Work

Goal of Magi to scale the Web beyond the desktop and server to every Internet-enabled device; billions instead of millions

Thin-server on every device to speak HTTP to every other device; WebDAV for writable Web

Similar to Freenet, Gnutella, Napster but doesn’t reinvent the Web; Not just sharing but access Apache HTTP server & plugins including other p2p protocols Extensible Java protocol implementations XML-based access controls using user controlled “Buddy lists” Dynamic authentication controls

Magi Approach

Access and control of user’s own information “in place” where it’s stored rather than moving

information around the Internet Namespace controls access and authentication Claims to namespace map to devices, even if not

activeKeys represent users, not content:

Greg’Laptop (Greg’s Laptop) refers to the same installation whether its at work behind a firewall, at home on a DSL connection, or on the road on a dialup connection

URL Mapping: http://endeavors.org/Magi/Dir/Greg’Laptop

Magi Approach

Decentralization of administrative control of authorization and access controls User’s buddy lists allow permissions Default directories for default levels of access which

include read, read/write, group, owner, and public based on HTTP and WebDAV methods

Permissions can be locally defined or authenticated with a 3rd party server or service

Locational awareness of information provides context for the information

Centralization of Metadata is a cheaper operation than information collection & allows knowledge about offline data

Magi Approach

Magi Application GUI: Java & Win32

Apache HTTP Server

XercesXML Engine

Jserv ServletEngineJSDK 2.x

Java2 JRE &Java SDKPlugins

MagiDAV

MagiSWAP

E-Service Manager

MagiWAP

Magi GUI

Magi Work FoldersInbox Outbox Private Public Shared Services

WAPGateway

MagiService

OnlineStorage

Sites

SmartUpdates

XML BuddyLists and ACL

& Triggers

ApacheModulePlugins

DynamicDNS

Services

HTTPEvent

Service API

Other protocols& Plugins

Magi Architecture

Centralize Authentication to maintain control and access Centralize Metadata to allow tracking and status, even of offline information Peer to peer nature allows negotiated content and long duration tracking, status, and processing Every Magi server can also be a registration authority

Magi Approach to Work

E-CommerceWeb Server

Credit CardSettlement

ElectronicWallet

ShoppingCart

Content Costly to put up e-commerce

site Significant technological

barriers to market Non-standard data and APIsInformation controlled by vendor

Ship &Track

Unique Applications: E-commerce (Now)

LightweightWeb Server

ElectronicWallet

ShoppingCart

Product ID

Decentralize Shopping Cart, E-wallet, and settlement services

Putting up a product for sale only requires registering the product

Anyone can become a Vendor Information Controlled by

Purchaser/User

Ship &Track

SettlementE-Services

Magi

Unique Applications: Magi E-commerce

LightweightWeb Server Service ID

Remote Control of Networked services

Secure “sphere” of networkable permissions

Access and control own information

Magi

Magi

Unique Applications: Home Networking

Magi

Using a WAP phone as a remote control, a user can download a media format (QT,MP3,AVI, etc) to his desktop proxy and then stream the contentsto any Magi enabled device using current Web technology. If the Magi serveris on the phone, the local IrDA or Bluetooth connection can provide the local connection to any other IrDA or Bluetooth device.

Unique Applications: Streaming Data

Magi is a client side Web application server that provides an event destination

Centralizing metadata and authentication allows maintaining of control and information about disconnected information

Providing access rather than moving data allows work to remain decentralized

Http://www.endtech.com/http://magi.endeavors.org/

Conclusions