What is NCC?
The underlying principle of Net-Centric Computing (NCC) is a distributed environment where applications and data are exchanged among peers across a network on an as-needed basis. NCC relies on portable applications running on multiple platforms, mobile code and data accessed via high-speed network connections, and low-cost appliances for local processing. In some respects, NCC resembles an earlier computing era of mainframes and dumb terminals. However, there are significant differences.

The last few years have seen interest in Net-Centric Computing wax, wane, and then wax again. At the moment, there appears to be a resurgence of interest in the area, driven in part by the proliferation of non-traditional computing devices and by dramatic changes in networking capabilities. One of the most exciting new developments is peer-to-peer networking, a computing paradigm that is far more than the simple MP3 file-swapping technology popularized by Napster.

Peer-to-Peer
In the book Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies, Andy Oram (editor), (O'Reilly & Associates, 2001), peer-to-peer (P2P) is defined as "… a class of applications that takes advantages of resources - storage, cycles, content, human presence-available at the edges of the Internet. Because accessing these decentralized resources means operating in an environment of unstable connectivity and unpredictable IP addresses, peer-to-peer nodes must operate outside the DNS (Domain Name System) and have significant or total autonomy from central servers." This definition highlights the decentralized nature of P2P networking, which is one of its greatest strengths: the ability to leverage the assets of previously unused and/or unconnected devices to the corporate network.

P2P applications were all the rage in 2000. Witness the popularity of Napster, Gnutella, and other file-sharing systems. Napster is a popular program that implements the P2P networking concept to let people to share MP3-encoded music files. In a P2P network, the nodes do not behave as clients or servers exclusively. Instead, each node can act as both a client and server simultaneously. Anyone using Napster can make music files available off of their computer to anyone on the Internet who is also running Napster (or one of its functional equivalents). Napster provides a search capability to explore all of the files that fellow users are making available off their local hard drives. Once selected, the MP3 files can be downloaded from the server to the client by just clicking on them.

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