From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client/Server World [Paperback]

Ian J. Taylor (Author), Andrew Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Series: Computer Communications and Networks | Publication Date: October 21, 2004

From P2P to Web Services and Grids

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"Provides rich background information to beginners entering this subject area. … The diagrams … are clear-cut, as are the snippets of codes. There are hardly any errors throughout the book. … covers a broad and coherent range of distributed-computing techniques … . People with different programming abilities, even those who have never written a single line of code … learn a lot from it. … recommend the book to anyone interested in distributed computing, especially students in the field of distributed computing … ." (Haoyang Che, THE COMPUTER JOUNAL, Vol. 48(3), 2005)

Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (October 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852338695
• ISBN-13: 978-1852338695
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,341,022 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gives a good overview of the technologies, very recommended, October 6, 2004

By 

Ian R. Kelley (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client/Server World (Paperback)

I feel that this book was a good read and really makes a lot of complex issues simple and easy to understand. The writing style of the author was very approachable. The book is pretty small (and paperback) which makes it easy to carry around, which actually inspired me to read the whole thing, unlike a bunch of longer books I have on my shelf.

The book focuses on decentralized networks, web services and p2p. It does a good job of showing how these are all interrelated and ties them in nicely to the new technologies of the Grid (I work in Grid computing, so this was very interesting for me to see).

I definately recommend this book to anyone working in this field, or just people who are curious about p2p, web services, or the Grid.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars unavoidably - no BitTorrent, October 4, 2006

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client/Server World (Paperback)

Taylor's book is a good update to Oram's Peer to Peer book from 2000. There has been much activity in the subsequent years and Taylor provides a useful summary. JXTA and Jini get an analysis. Perhaps not as successful as Sun might have wished, as least for Jini.

More generally, all the major p2p networks are described. With their different topologies. Napster, of course, gets a mention, as the first major p2p network. Then we see Web Services, about which much has been speculated. And the Grid and Globus, for massive scientific computing.

The biggest omission is BitTorrent, which was only getting started when the book was being drafted. But this is now the biggest worry of all the p2p networks, for the movie companies.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive tour, easily understood, May 24, 2005

By 

A reader (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client/Server World (Paperback)

This book, "From P2P to Web Services and Grids", provides an up-to-date and comprehensive tour of the new distributed computing technologies arising out of the convergence of computing and communications. Readers with a telecommunications background will find many of the concepts surprisingly familiar whilst those coming from a background in enterprise information systems will discover new approaches for solving today's enterprise application integration problems.

The text, whilst aimed at and suitable for an undergraduate study module, is supplemented by an extensive list of references to more detailed sources for those that need the extra detail. Chapter by chapter the author, who is clearly knowledgeable, explains peer-to-peer systems, Grids, Web Services, service-oriented architectures and distributed object technologies. This is done both in general terms and with reference to specific examples of the technologies in action: Gnutella, Napster, Jini, Jxta, Globus, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. The final chapter covers the latest developments in Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSF) and Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF). As well as exploring specific technologies, there are two general purpose chapters on scalability and security of distributed systems in general.