Coordination and enterprise wide P2P computing

Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is a distributed computing paradigm that uses large numbers of autonomous hosts as a platform for the execution of applications. This paper focuses on P2P computing in an enterprise environment. Unlike other P2P computing scenarios more access and data about the peers, network and users is available thus enabling the deployment of more complex applications that consists of components that are hosted on different peers. Unfortunately the distribution of components in a P2P network leads to serious coordination issues. This paper has two aims. First of all it is an attempt to draw more attention to the issues surrounding the use of P2P computing in an enterprise environment. We believe that there is a growing demand for using the distributed resources of an organization in a P2P manner that allows users to keep their autonomy and control over "their" machines. Secondly, the paper presents a framework/middleware called P2P-Manifold designed to support the seamless execution of distributed applications in a P2P network.