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Get Into the Groove

One notable new peer-to-peer product comes from Groove Networks, founded by Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes. Groove, which was still in preview mode at press time, offers downloadable client software that lets users create "shared spaces" with others on the network.

A user running Groove invites participants into a shared space using e-mail or IM. When they accept, the space appears on each participant's screen.

The group can then use IM, threaded discussions, and shared whiteboards to communicate. If a participant drops a Word file into the shared desktop space, for example, Groove launches the same file on other users' systems. The software encrypts all communication--including the initial request for a meeting--to make the space secure.

Sound familiar? Functionally speaking, it is. But a peer-to-peer solution like Groove doesn't require central administration or server resources. Groove's shared spaces are dynamic and vanish when users decide they don't need them. Unlike both client/server- and Web-based solutions, Groove isn't built around fixed interfaces, and it uses XML to display information and to transmit just the changes from the group's collaboration.

Groove's advantages have already won some converts, one of whom is John Sequeira of ECratchit, a bookkeeping and accounting application service provider.

Sequeira began testing Groove last year in collaboration with a team of about 15 developers. "We use people from outside the company, and we needed to be able to collaborate with them in real time without our IT guys giving them access to our network or worrying about security," he says.

While actual code remains safely sequestered at ECratchit headquarters in Braintree, Massachusetts, Sequeira and his group use Groove to track open issues like bugs. "It's better and more secure than e-mail," he says. For now, though, Groove runs only on Windows--so if your company has a heterogeneous network, some people will be left out of the loop.

File Sharing and Management

Though file sharing may be part of a collaboration platform such as Groove, it's more recognizable as a stand-alone solution that doesn't entail interaction among people at their desktops. Perhaps the most obvious example is Napster.

Most public peer-to-peer schemes are relatively unstructured, untamed territory, however. In an enterprise, file sharing is more likely to take the form of knowledge or document management.

"People create knowledge and they store it on their desktop," says Andrew Mahon, director of strategic marketing for Groove Networks. "It would be nice if they would publish it to a central location, the way client/server knowledge management tools are supposed to work, but people are lazy. Peer-to-peer solutions allow people to look around and find the knowledge."

One company working on controlled methods of sharing files is Roku, of Chantilly, Virginia. Its Roku Share program allows users to drag documents into local, shared folders where workgroups can access them. All Roku connections are encrypted using secure socket layer; packets going over wires are encrypted, too.

Other companies are adapting peer-to-peer techniques to solve nagging corporate problems such as virus protection. Last May, DPR Construction of Redwood City, California, began using an antivirus program from an ASP called MyCIO.com to protect its 1400 desktop computers. At press time, MyCIO changed its name to McAfee ASaP. The program--VirusScan ASaP--uses peer-to-peer technology to check whether systems have the latest virus protection.

Why did DPR make the move? "We got caught by the Love Bug virus," says DPR's network manager, Lee Rocklage. "We have over a thousand machines, but only a couple hundred had updated virus profiles. People simply hadn't downloaded them."

With VirusScan ASaP, which costs DPR just $1600 a month for all 1400 of the company's terminals, the first five workstations that log on to the Internet each day get the latest virus patches from the McAfee ASaP Web site. Those workstations then pass along the updates to the company's other systems, including computers at remote sites that tap into the network through a virtual private network.

"This ensures that all our workstations get the latest virus updates as soon as they log on," says Rocklage. "It happens behind the scenes, and it means not everyone needs to log on to the [McAfee ASaP] site to get the patch, which helps keep the load on our Internet connection under control."

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