Peer-to-peer technology has great potential. It enables the fastest content delivery possible, insures everyone has the content locally on their desktop, and leverages the full bi-directional power of the internet beyond the client-server design of the web.
From day one, our goal with Content Circles has been to develop a peer-to-peer Content Management system which complements existing Enterprise Content Management systems and guarantees the content shared amongst peers is secure. However, there are several challenges we faced:
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P2P needs connectivity between peers - Regardless of whether each machine has a direct internet connection or is connecting through a firewall, peer-to-peer requires each to be able to discover a route to be able to send messages and content to each other.
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P2P requires both parties to be online at the same time - When someone makes an update, that change can only be sent to the other peers that are online. If one of the peers isn't available, they can not get the update until they are online at the same time as someone who already has the update is online.
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P2P has a bad rap with IT - The historic problems with Napster and other P2P technologies which violated copyright law has caused some in IT to not trust any use of P2P.
With Content Circles, we have worked to address these areas of concern to deliver a solution which fulfills the promise of P2P:
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Support direct and web service assisted connections - Peers which can directly communicate can take advantage of fast messaging and transfers. For those peers which can not be reached directly, our web service hosts a forwarding service which can shuffle blocks between the peers across firewalls. All of this effort is hidden under the hood--users just add content and send messages without having to consider how it is being delivered to peers on the other side.
Note the use of blocks for passing data between peers enables arbitrarily large files to be sent. Small files or messages are sent in a single block while larger files are broken into several blocks which are reassembled into a single file upon receipt.
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When not online together, use a Store and Forward node - We have purposely stayed away from hosting content for our customers to provide that extra level of security--nobody other than the members of the circle have access to the content in the circle. This does create a problem for teams spread across timezones where they may not all be online at the same time. Out solution is for someone to host a Store and Forward node which is another copy of Content Circles running on a machine that is always on. When configured as a Store and Forward node, registered users can add this node as a member and always know their content is being hosted for other members even when they are offline. In this way, you get the benefits of content hosting without the security risks that go along with pushing your content to the cloud.
This Store and Forward node does not have to be on a fast or dedicated machine. Content Circles works in the background and can co-exist with web servers and other applications on the machine. The key is having the Store and Forward installed on a machine that is always on. If IT wants to have a role in support of Content Circles, hosting this Store and Forward node is the perfect way for them to help maintain the infrastructure for a robust Content Circles implementation.
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Full auditability - Content Circles tracks every action taken in a circle and provides Content Status so each member can see what each other has done. While traditional P2P systems try to hide as much history as possible, Content Circles captures this detail to help give members the complete view of their circles. This also reinforces that any actions taken in Content Circles are auditable so proper business rules must be followed.
By addressing the risks of P2P, we feel Content Circles provides the best solution for Content Collaboration without barriers.
