The Last Word

Intel's Peer-to-Peer Accelerator Kit is an excellent example of how extensible the .NET Framework really is, and how it can lend itself to a new programming paradigm such as peer-to-peer. It's still too early to decide whether Intel's Peer-to-Peer Accelerator Kit will live up to its promise or become another interesting sidebar in the history of programming. Presumably, Intel is committed to peer-to-peer technology today because they hope it will drive the adoption of their hardware in the future, and despite investing in peer-to-peer development and belonging to peer-to-peer working groups, Intel's interest could waver.

Unfortunately, the fact that the toolkit is written as a proprietary component (rather than a traditional open-source project) doesn't encourage confidence. Unlike most emerging technologies, there's no supporting developer community or hub on the website where you can find news about ongoing developments or plans. But whatever the ultimate fate of the Intel Peer-to-Peer Accelerator Kit, you can still learn enough about peer-to-peer development to make it worthwhile to examine it closely and experiment with some of the samples. Comparing this code to some of the samples in this book will also help you understand the trade-offs and design decisions inherent in any peer-to-peer programming project. In fact, you can even review, modify, or use the C# source code, which is installed with the setup in the [InstallDir]\Intel\P2P\v1.0\src directory.