Studies have indicated that 50% or more of a typical organisation's processing power may be unused. Peer-to-peer is a way of tapping this unused resource for productive purposes. There are indications that commercial organisations see this as one of the most practical uses of peer-to-peer technology. However, it must be pointed out that such an application of peer-to-peer only becomes relevant if there are major processing needs that an organisation is finding difficult to meet. Where such a situation arises, it can be more efficient and cost-effective to spread processing across the computers in the organisation than to buy expensive mainframes.

The drawbacks here are that there will be a set-up cost for installing the peer-to-peer technology. Education and training will be needed. When ongoing maintenance is added to this, the costs can begin to mount up. Whether peer-to-peer is genuinely cost-effective in such situations depends on the amount of processing that is going to be required. A careful analysis is required to establish when a peer-to-peer approach is worth considering.

Driven by the rapid growth in partnerships and the need to be more flexible and adaptive, collaboration is now seen as a key attribute of a progressive organisation. Peer-to-peer can prove useful where people are collaborating and sharing resources and content on an active basis. If there is a need to establish a group that might span several organisations, then peer-to-peer technology can be faster and easier to implement and run than traditional approaches.

It is true that most content today resides on individual computers rather than on servers that publish this content to websites. Peer-to-peer allows you to see all the content within the organisation, rather than just what has been published on websites. This may be helpful when you are looking for something very specific, but there are some substantial drawbacks.

Much of the content that exists on an individual's computer is either private, in draft form, out of date, or simply not ready for publication or sharing. It is estimated that by 2001 there were already over 550 billion documents published on intranets, extranets, and public websites. This in itself is a vast, unimaginable quantity of content. The quantity of content that is on individual computers around the world would dwarf this massive amount. Having the capacity to access all this content may sound valuable in theory, but in practice it could make information overload a hundred times worse than it already is.

With regard to content publication, peer-to-peer thinking seems to miss some fundamental rules of publishing. Publishing is not, and never has been, about following an 'as much as you can read' approach, but is about selecting the best content and publishing it. A quality publishing house will reject 90% of the content presented to it. It will then polish up the final 10%, and publish it in such a way that it is easy to find and easy to read.

The classic model of file sharing occurs where someone downloads a file from a central server. This approach can put a lot of strain on bandwidth if there are a large number of people who need to download files. Peer-to-peer file sharing seeks to use bandwidth more effectively. Let's say Person A and Person B are close together on the network. Person A downloads an e-learning course. Later, Person B wants to download the same course. With peer-to-peer, instead of Person B's request being acted on by the central server, the system looks to see if there is anyone near B on the network who has downloaded the same course. The system finds that A has. So now, instead of B downloading from the central server, B will download from A's machine. This saves time and network resources.

Peer-to-peer thrives in an open network environment. The problem is that hackers and viruses likewise thrive in that very same environment. Within an organisation there may be a whole variety of operating systems and security protocols, and linking them all together in a cohesive and secure manner is not a simple task. Many believe that this is the Achilles heel of peer-to-peer.

A key aspect of peer-to-peer security is the authentication of users. Knowing that the peer you want to share with is reputable and trustworthy is critical. To improve security, many peer-to-peer interactions now use encryption, which ensures that the communication is secure as it is being passed from computer to computer.

Privacy is a major issue for people whose computers will be used in the peer-to-peer network. While enthusiasts tend to be technically competent, and thus more able to deal with security and privacy issues, most computer users are novices from a technical point of view. What this means is that they become very dependent on their IT department to make sure nothing is going wrong. This situation is not welcomed by the average IT manager.

Equally, for the individual, the idea that someone else can root around within his or her computer can be unnerving. Making sure that their private files are fully protected is only part of the problem. In essence, it means thinking about the computer differently: looking at one part of it as being public domain and another private. This requires a change in work practices that many people are not willing to accept.

Peer-to-peer technology can allow the organisation to investigate its computers and see what resources it has. This could allow an organisation to monitor software continually and to distribute upgrades as they become available. It could also allow it to examine the content being created or downloaded by a particular individual, thus giving it more control. Some might describe this as a Big Brother situation.

Certain elements need to be in place for peer-to-peer to function. These include:

• publishing of resources: to make a resource available, it must be published on the computer. This requires that it be identified as a resource that can be shared. Part of this identification involves a proper description that will allow other users to identify it quickly and accurately.
• location of resources: the person who wants a resource must locate it. This can be a major problem in a large peer-to-peer environment where there could be many millions of resources available. Some form of directory classification becomes essential in such an environment.
• utilising the resource: once the resource has been located, there must be a method by which it can be utilised. If the resource is content, such as music, then it can be simply downloaded. However, if it is processing power it will require a more complex interaction.