Sharing Design Information Using Peer-to-Peer Computing

Sharing information between team members and the need to collaborate on design work to ensure that all elements of the design are compatible is essential. The type of information to be shared in a design project takes many different forms which can be stored digitally and processed electronically using all types of digital devices. Peer-to-Peer computing has opened up the possibility for information to be transferred directly between digital devices so that mobile phones, PDA's, networked computers, and other communicable devices could be used to pass information between team members. The use of XML allows information to be held in data structures and these structures can be processed in a peer-to-peer environment using software tools. This paper shows through the creation of a simple prototype and a tool called JXTA from the SUN Corporation how the sharing of data structures using Peer-to-Peer computing can be achieved.