Ariel Networks Network should be the z¡¦vironmentz¡¦or applications

Seiichiro Inoue
CTO


Ariel Networks was established in 2001, by Japanese ex-employees of Lotus Development Corp. The company released groupware product Ariel AirOne in September 2002 and project management product Project A in April 2004. Ariel AirOne has an IPv6-enabled version. IPv6style asked Seiichiro Inoue, Chief Architect, about business P2P and IPv6.


Transcending places and organization boundaries

IPv6style:Was Ariel Networks founded for P2P groupware?

Inoue:P2P software is not the only one we are focusing on, although it is the first and biggest product category. Our purpose is not to promote P2P technology. P2P is just a tool for us. Our corporate vision is to offer applications that users can use as transparently as air.

IPv6style: For some people, the phrase “P2P groupware” may sound as if its data availability is unstable, with no central server to store the data. What motivated your company to develop P2P groupware product?

Inoue:P2P makes it easier to do what have been difficult with client-server paradigm. The first advantage that comes to mind is quick and low-cost deployment, with no need to set up a dedicated server. But more importantly, the fact that P2P groupware doesn’t need dedicated server means huge flexibility. With traditional applications, users had to wait for their administrators to install and allow them to use a particular application. But with P2P applications, users can immediately start utilizing them at their own will. In other words, they can instantly create communities across places and organizational boundaries. For example, many universities and research institutes have geographically dispersed campuses and facilities. With traditional client-server model, it would be cumbersome for you to share information with others on different sites, because you have to first decide who should set up and administer a server on which site. With P2P applications, you can just start group communication straight away with no need to assign an administrator.

If IPv6 communication is available, that’s even better for use that transcends organization boundaries. P2P and IPv6 are highly complementary to each other here.

IPv6style:The developer of P2P file exchange software Winny got arrested. What is your opinion about the influence of such incidents on P2P andIPv6?

Inoue:The issue in this case is anonymity, rather than P2P itself. The two are distinctively different issues, whether anonymity is good or bad. Ariel products offer P2P applications based on user authentication. The future of P2P and IPv6 won’t be ill affected, as long as such mechanism is enforced.

IPv6style:More generally, what is your opinion about influence of P2P architecture on corporate IT?

Inoue:Some people say P2P will replace client-server architecture. But my opinion as an engineer is that the two will continue to complement with each other well into the future. Certain types of data should be centrally managed at servers. Some other types of data had better be exchanged directly. Which architecture should be used depends on the contents and purpose of each system.

IPv6style:What features do you want to add to your products down the road?

Inoue:We’ll be adding video phone capability. We are also focusing on vertical solutions, targeting specific industry segments. For example, we are developing medical solutions, in which we handle large volume medical information files in our file exchange mechanism. Large volume data exchange is hard to do with servers. Data privacy is of primary concern with this type of application, too.

IPv6style:Video phone is not popular yet. How do you think it will be widely used?

Inoue:I believe video phone will be popular if users can easily get their hands on a tool that’s easy-to-use. A big factor may be that Windows currently doesn’t offer such application by default. In any case, we will not wait for Microsoft to come up with their application.

IPv6style:How are you offering rendezvous mechanism for P2P nodes to find one another?

Inoue:It’s our core technology for nodes to find resources on one another over the Internet. We include this technology in Ariel Framework, the foundation of our applications. With Ariel Framework, nodes can change communication mode according to availability of P2P reachability between nodes. If no direct sessions are not possible even for one way, nodes can seamlessly use relay nodes set up on each organizational network. We offer this framework as SDK and encourage other companies to develop applications on this.

IPv6style:Why did Ariel decide to offer SDK to others?

Inoue:We thought we could get fresh ideas from various people. There are not so many P2P development tool alternatives that can be used for business application, although JXTA is a famous one. Ariel Framework is platform independent. With Windows, we are often forced to wait for Microsoft for particular tools and applications, but with other platforms, people can build various applications without waiting for others.

IPv6style:Automation of P2P resource discovery process can lead to loss of manageability. What do you think?

Inoue:We clearly recognize such issue. We are developing ways to satisfy both of these requirements. We will offer such feature in the near future.


NAT is too restrictive for apps

IPv6style:Was IPv6 support in your plan from the start?

Inoue:We didn’t think we would do it when we first developed Ariel AirOne three years ago. But we did it later because it was easy and fun. Building IPv6 network environment for product testing was more cumbersome than IPv6-enabling the product. We had done protocol independent programming, so giving IPv6 support to our software was easy except for such minor change in the process of getting local IP addresses. It turned out that many people are using our applications because only a few real applications support IPv6 at present.

IPv6style:What do you think of the value of IPv6 as a software developer?

Inoue:I’m longing for IPv6-only network environment. NAT traversal is the most unproductive part in P2P application development at present. As a programmer, I want to be freed from such burden, to make programming straightforward and therefore improve the quality of product. Being able to use global addresses freely brings us back to the early days of the Internet. I certainly hope that will happen. NAT is too restrictive for application.

IPv6style:On the other hand, global reachability to nodes causes security concern.

Inoue:We can implement user authentication and data encryption at higher layers. Personally, I don’t like shutting down particular ports. Free network availability means more possibility for applications. Security at lower layer is more difficult as it requires a more generic implementation.

IPv6style:What do you think will accelerate IPv6 support by PC applications?

Inoue:Spread of P2P applications will be one catalyst for the spread of IPv6. If the word P2P leads to misunderstanding, we can call it secure distributed computing environment, or grid. IPv6 infrastructure is maturing. It’s up to us application developers to use it now.