Microsoft
P2P Networks SDK Ships
I’m
torn between wanting to write about why this is interesting and
whether that means I’ll have to explain the technology behind it
which is, frankly, beyond me. But
I doubt you’re depending on me for technology explanations, so
here goes:
Microsoft
has released its SDK (developer kit) for advanced networking
applications that supports both new Windows XP technology and the
IPv6 (new Internet Protocol) enhancements. (If you want the news
release you can find it here http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Feb03/02-26SDKAnnouncesPR.asp)
What
this is all about is being able to build peer-to-peer applications
for both the consumer and the business markets.
There are several exciting parts.
-
It
will allow developers to create decentralized applications and
services for business and consumer scenarios using peer-to-peer
technology. The SDK includes updated Windows XP application
programming interfaces (APIs) for scalable peer-to-peer name
resolution, efficient multipoint communication, creation and
management of persistent peer-to-peer groups, and distributed
data management.
-
Enhancements
to IPv6 include support for Network Address Translation (NAT)
traversal and an IPv6 firewall to help protect IPv6-enabled
machines. This means that it will be possible to take advantage of the
extended address set of IPv6, which allows assigning permanent
addresses to individual devices in Windows XP networks.
This could greatly enhance the features of software for
local area networks in homes and offices and offer peer-to-peer
networking without the need for complicated schemes.
It also provides built-in peer-to-peer support for XP
applications via the embedded IPv6 support.
We
note that while a Groove executive praised the features of the
release, Groove, a Microsoft partner for peer-to-peer software was
otherwise unmentioned in the release.
Since they were not offered as a resource, they were not we
would guess, being pointed to as a source for the technology, which
seems to us to be in some aspects competitive to their own.
Since
we had just been reading a report from Cap Gemini Ernest &
Young’s Center for Business Innovation (www.cbi.cgey.com
)on Adaptive Enterprises (organizations that can adapt flexibility
and dynamically to changes in the business environment, often by
being given great autonomy at the bottom and/or the edges), we were
delighted to see that the SDK will attempt to entice developers to
build applications that can support this kind of adaptive
application to support broad interaction.
The
Windows XP Peer-to-Peer SDK beta is available for download now at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/winxppeer.asp.
The final release of SDK and related Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Update
will be available later this year.
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