Exercise 4 - Network and Web programming frameworks

1. Describe the important and distinguishing properties of Peer to Peer computing with the client/server architecture?

P2P
Peer-to-peer or P2P, is a distributed network architecture composed of participants that make a portion of the resources (such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth) directly available to other network participants, without the need of a central co-ordination service or instance (Wikipedia, 2010). Some of the distinguishing properties of P2P is that the nodes or peers themselves are both consumers and suppliers. The architecture of the network is decentralised meaning there is no central location as all nodes serve requests and responses. Below is an example of BitTorrent which uses peer-to-peer networking in the functioning of this application.





Advantages P2P
1. Robustness of a decentralised network
2. If one or many nodes fails the network is not down, as the resources as shared and distributed among the nodes

Disadvantages P2P
1. Administration is difficult
2. Lack of security of the network



Client/Server

Client/Server architecture on the otherhand uses a central node or co-ordinator (i.e. a server) which is usually a high-performance machine which serves requests from clients (i.e. desktops). A client itself doesn't share any of its resources but it requests servers content, which the server generates and returns to the client. Below is an example of a client/server architecture for a internal website.



Advantages Client/Server
1. Increase security as sensitive data can be stored on secured systems
2. Administration of the network is easier than P2P
3. Network is centralised

Disadvantages Client/Server
1. Server or central component can be overloaded given a rise in simultaneous requests
2. If a critical component fails the network can be brought to a halt










2. Frameworks for development. Compare and contrast any TWO of: Java, .NET, Ruby on Rails, Turbo Gears, Google Gears, AJAX frameworks.

Ruby vs Java presentation from Belighted.com, this gives a great explanation of the differences between java and ruby on rails.Ruby vs Java

References
Wikipedia (2010). Peer-to-peer architecture retrieved 27th March 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer