Why jxta

The JXTA protocols enable developers to build and deploy interoperable services and applications, further spring-boarding the P2P revolution on the Internet. The JXTA project intends to address this problem by providing a simple and generic P2P platform to host any kind of network services.

JXTA is defined by a small number of protocols. Each protocol is easy to implement and integrate into P2P services and applications. At the risk of overwhelming you with buzzwords, we can say that a P2P architecture should be considered whenever you require scalable, robust, dynamic, fault-tolerant, spontaneous, self-organizing network computing.

A web auction for specialized French fries available only at your local restaurant presents enormous scalability problems for a centralized system, which must handle requests and responses from every conceivable restaurant and potential diner. And such a segregated service will inevitably be problematic for users on the segregation boundary. For example, if the service is segregated by zip code, users may be directed miles away within the same zip code when a closer choice is available a few blocks away in a different zip code.

A P2P system has a much easier time of it: the diner can discover nearby services automatically and at an appropriate scale. Since no centralized system monitors everything, there are no problems with system capacity: users of the service monitor nearby services in which they are interested and discard other information.

As all computer users can attest, network computing is inherently unreliable: connections drop, servers crash, companies go out of business, and so on. Web search engines are useful entities and quite good at what they do, but they often lead to dead links and moved documents.

If one particular restaurant goes offline, it can be dropped from the community. These problems will still affect individual participants in the P2P community, but the failures they cause will not have a widespread effect on others within the community. P2P applications discover services and other resources dynamically and automatically when they are needed.

There is no central registry of these services. This dynamic behavior allows scalability and robustness across the entire system, of course, and it also influences the way in which you must think about P2P applications. Resources may be available when you need them, but they may not; like the print shop posited above, they may be available just in time.

Most people don't get it until they start putting their hands in the dirt. It is not possible to implement P2P 'in a simple way'. For more information, register on the mailing lists. Interestingly what was missing with all the P2P initiatives of the past was a motivation for a peer to stay active.

Trust was another factor - how can I trust a peer. As a key member of the team, we introduced security. But security doesn't address trust. To make it even worse, JXTA introduced the concept of super nodes - defeating the very concept of peer to peer.

However, not everything was that bad. JXTA provided a lots of new concepts. Fast forward, Blockchain addressed gaps with addressing most if not all the questions that any P2P platform could not answer: trust, incentivizing peers, tamper proof and much more. It could be competition. MPI is a widely accepted messaging standard for computing. Hadoop is getting a lot of traction.

I think my answer has more to do with user adoption, which is different. Mine go back to the origins of JXTA, not the details of releases 2. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Why has JXTA been abandoned? Any alternatives out there? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 6 months ago. Active 3 years, 5 months ago. Viewed 9k times.