Peer-to-peer file-sharing as part of an information infrastructure

M.A.A second technological revolution is imminent. As with the first major technological revolution, which was driven by the decentralisation of computing power from that of mainframe networks to that of the “smart” personal-workstation computer, this second revolution is also characterised and driven by decentralised online-communication technology. In terms of this second revolution, however, modern computer users are poised to free themselves of centralised Internet servers for communication and/or file-sharing by connecting to other users directly. This second revolution has even been given a name, that is, “People-to-People” or “Peer-to-Peer computing”, called “P2P computing” for short. Although the basic concept of P2P computing cannot lay claim to being entirely new, it is associated by many a user with file-sharing, particularly with MP3 music files, whilst P2P computing, in fact, constitutes much more, such as instant messaging, group collaboration and distributed computing. Closer to the Information Studies and library environments would be the P2P data replication of a digital-library collection. The extensive use of P2P computing will have a significant impact on the bandwidths available within organisations, to the extent that an unprepared network may very well be overwhelmed by the increased traffic generated by the use of P2P file-sharing. A well-founded understanding of the usage patterns of the individuals using P2P applications will ensure better management and control by the system administrators of and over the expensive information technology (IT) infrastructure. This will also ensure better response to and usage of other systems and applications, such as e-mail and the general World Wide Web utilising the same infrastructure. The principal aim of this study, which was undertaken at the Rand Afrikaans University, is to identify such user behaviour and utilisation patterns in students interacting with P2P systems available on the Internet. The selected respondents, in their capacity of Information Science students, all completed a questionnaire aimed at examining, among other things, aspects such as • information technology (IT) utilisation • the frequency and duration of user sessions • the type of content downloaded and shared • the social aspects associated with P2P file-sharing. P2P computing can be seen as a radically new mindset, setting the stage for a decentralised Internet future. Although distributed computing is dogged by various inherent problems, for example copyright and privacy issues, the most troublesome problem still is that of bandwidth usage. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the application of the research results of this study will ensure the better management of existing infrastructure and resources, as well as the development and rendering of new value-added services within organisations