Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1. Comparison between client-server vs. peer-to-peer
Dimension
Client-Server Model
Peer-to-Peer Model
LOW: Requires Capital Outlays to Build and
Maintain
• Requires servers with high purchase, hosting, and
maintenance costs.
• Centralized model, with no sharing of resources,
resulting in higher overhead.
HIGH: More Economical
• No overhead costs as the peers constitute the network
(O'Reilly, 2001).
• For centralized P2P, very low infrastructure and
maintenance costs (Rosenblatt, Trippe, & Mooney,
2002).
Costs of Ownership
(e.g., infrastructure, dis-
tribution, maintenance
costs)
MIDDLE: Hardware and Infrastructure De-
pendent
• Low, as scalability is limited by centralized opera-
tions such as coordination.
• High dependency on centralized point (Milojicic
et al., 2002).
HIGH: Inherently Organic, Scales with Users
• Scales by avoiding dependency on centralized point
(Milojicic et al., 2002).
• P2P are more suitable for the large number of com-
puters on the Internet or mobile devices (Minar &
Hedlung, 2001).
Scalability
MIDDLE: Dependent on Bandwidth of Peers and
Number of Peers
• High: reduction of redundancy through replicat-
ing information at multiple nodes (Kini & Shetty,
2001).
• High: P2P can help to break the IT bottleneck.
More effective use of Internet resources by edge
service.
• On peer level, poor for pure P2P: as sending/receiving
and keeping communication requires lot of traffic.
• Offering download to other peers' means sharing
bandwidth and perhaps slowing down own connec-
tion speed (Kwok, Lang & Kar, 2002).
HIGH: Dependent on Centralized Infrastructure
• Poor, as single point of failure resulting in crashed
and busy servers.
• Low risk of fault tolerance.
• Low risk of free riding (Schoder & Fischbach,
2002).
• Content is always accessible, does not depend on
number of users connected to the server.
• Only one point for maintenance of digital data.
Performance
(e.g., fault tolerance, free
riding problem)
HIGH: Less Vulnerable due to direct link to
content provider
• Does not “open” up a certain part of their computer
to others, unknown peers.
• Central authority increases control, thus reducing
risk of virus attack.
MIDDLE: Vulnerable by Forcing Peers to Have
Server Functionalities
• Peer must “open” several parts and/or ports, which
render peers vulnerable to hackers and virus attacks
(Kwok, Lang, & Kar, 2002).
Security For Peer
(e.g., denial access at-
tacks)
LOW: Distributed and Vulnerable
• For pure P2P, the control over where and how the
content is shared is lost but not in a centralized P2P
network (Lesavich, 2002).
• For pure P2P, peer devices are owned by individuals
instead of ISP's; it is not easy to locale or initiate
litigation against individuals (Lesavich, 2002).
• Poor search possibilities as on P2P networks it begins
when the user logs into the networks.
Centralized and Controlled
• Can easily be determined who request the digital
content, which digital content, how many copies of
the digital content was utilized, how many time,
and so forth (Lesavich, 2002).
• Content providers can exercise control through
the server and manage rights digitally (Fetscherin,
2002).
Security For Content
Provider
(e.g., access control, usage
tracking, piracy)
HIGH: Organic Service
• Dynamic availability of content and information
as the amount of data depends on the number of
peers
• Free riding issue, but positive externalities.
• For pure P2P, poor quality of service.
HIGH: Assured and Controlled
• High, as it is simple to control the uniqueness of
a digital content. As the server is on a centralized
control.
• Quality check done by centralized server.
Quality of Service /
Control
(e.g., authenticity, integ-
rity of data)
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search