http://www.bizreport.com/print.php?art_id)76
Wednesday, February 13, 2002 Web Services + P2P = Efficiency: Gartner Â
If applied in the corporate world, technology made famous by music file-sharing service Napster could help streamline the flow of data within and outside of enterprises, and cut costs, according to new report by Gartner Inc.
The research firm says it has come up with a way to do it and may very well patent the idea.
Gartner said today it has developed a model that combines the power of Web services and peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies to access designated data files from a centralized server.
The system – which Gartner calls “service station” – would make available data captured in files on desktop computers throughout an enterprise or to subscribers, said Gartner’s Daryl Plummer, group vice president and research group director.
“The service station will do for corporate file sharing what Napster did for music,” Plummer said. “It will make it easy to get what you want when you want it.”
Enterprises would control what files are available through the system, and who has access to them.
“You’re providing service to the people in the scope or the domain that you want to provide that service,” Plummer said. “And if you don’t want to provide it anymore, you would just tell your service station client to shut off access to it.”
Plummer says its model is different than collaborative software already available, such as that produced by Groove Networks.
Security is a concern, but measures to protect files from unauthorized access, denial of service attacks and other intrusions will eventually be implemented, he said.
“The same kind of problems we’ve seen with the Internet will come down to more of a one-on-one issue where you’ve got to solve the same problems,” Plummer told Newsbytes. “Those problems will be solved, of course.”
Gartner will decide whether to patent service station within 60 days, he said.
Gartner – http://www.gartner.com
http://www.bizreport.com//article.php?art_id)76 Reported by Newsbytes