P2P WEB SERVICES AND THE SEMANTIC WEB

Web2 is dominated by centralized web service providers like AWS, Bing, Google, and social networks. But in Web 3.0, which uses the semantic web and P2P computing, web services will be decentralized.

What are web services?

Web services are software operations that occur between machine-to-machine or machine-to-client. It involves the use of standard messaging protocols from server web applications to clients who invoke the service. This allows information and data to be easily exchanged.

Amazon makes provision for web services through its Amazon Web Services (AWS) - a cloud computing system where businesses, government agencies, and startups can build their platforms from around the world. Also, Google offers cloud computing services on its server for developers and businesses to leverage its data analytics, infrastructure and machine learning facilities to build their software.

What is a decentralized web service?

A decentralized web service refers to a peer-to-peer network where there is no central authority to authenticate services. Authentication is carried out through the aid of a distributed network of privately owned servers that are independent and interconnected combining to provide a unified secure and decentralized user experience.

There is no doubt that this setup beats traditional centralized systems. First, it makes the service more resilient to outages and failures. Once one server goes down, others cover up for its failings.

Another reason is it is a cost-effective and more efficient means of transmitting service. Intermediaries who act as middlemen are eliminated, thereby cutting off the need for expensive server farms and allows users to share services and resources freely.

What is Peer to Peer Computing?

Peer to peer computing means a decentralized system where there is equality amongst all participating servers or systems. This indicates that there is no central server or authority figure that everyone must go through in order to access the service provided for users.

Alternatively, all the processing is done by the individuals computing nodes. This can be done through a series of methods, ranging from using a distributed hash table to track data and resources or distributing several files across multiple machines. What this means is that the peer-to-peer computing service can continue to operate even if one or more of the nodes cease to function. Therefore, users also have a great control over their data and how it is used.

What is the semantic web?

The semantic web is a subclass of the decentralized web because it uses a given set of foundations as a way of representing knowledge of machines. This makes machine understanding and data sharing easier.

Put into perspective, the semantic web gives room for machines to read data more like humans. With this provision, the semantic web makes the possibility for machines to not only process and understand data, but also to make use of them in intelligent ways. This is especially useful for decentralized web service organizations, as it allows for machines to autonomously cooperate and collaborate in order to provide better services for users.

The role peer to peer computing and semantic web can play in a decentralized web service

There is a whole lot of potential that can be gotten from the combination of peer-to-peer computing and semantic web in the organization of a web service that is decentralized.

A database that is decentralized can be created using the semantic web technology model to store information of the services offered by independent data nodes. This creates an easy user experience, where users find services they need easily, as well as being able to advertise services they offer to other nodes.

On the other hand, peer to peer computing can be employed to manage the communication between different nodes, thereby allowing the sharing of processing power and storage.

Blockchain technology is not left out of the whole idea of a decentralized web service organization. In fact, the blockchain gave rise to the first known decentralized website in Bitcoin which was released in 2009. Other decentralized websites include Ethereum, Opensea, Brave, Axie, Metamask, Uniswap, amongst others. These range from blockchains to NFT marketplaces, wallets, gaming, browsers and exchanges.

The blockchain is a distributed ledger in which transactions are sequentially made secure and verifiable cryptographically. These transactions among nodes of software operate under a certain set of laws which are embedded and guided by cryptography. Records of transactions can be verified and owned by anyone from anywhere without any central control.    

Using blockchain technology, a tamper-proof ledger can be made for web services which will secure the servers. This creation will help to keep all transactions and information accurate without any means of disrupting them on the system.

The combinations of peer-to-peer computing and semantic web which are very much a part of what has made blockchain technology successful will create a web service that is not only decentralized, but also easy, secure and efficient to use.

Benefits of a Decentralized Web Service

Leveraging web services like blockchain technology on a decentralized organization will bring several benefits and utilities for users.

For a start, information around the web will be much more secure and tamper-proof. Since there is no central authority that can censor or disrupt the system, information that is stored can be accessed easily and free from theft.

Also, a decentralized web service will allow for a democratic setting. Here, users will be able to participate in the governance of the network without any central authority dictating the rules. Everyone's voice is heard within this structure.

Finally, a decentralized system is not only efficient in its usage, but also scalable for users. Given that there is no central focus of the system, whenever there is any failure from any part of the network, others are not slowed down in their handling of user volume and traffic.

A great way to get started with a decentralized web service is to leverage some blockchain and network hosting platforms like BitShares, MaidSafe or Ethereum to create a decentralized application.

About Pontem

Pontem Network is a product studio building the first-ever suite of foundational dApps for Aptos. It includes Pontem Wallet, the first wallet for Aptos, which is now in its 1.6 version. Download it from the Chrome Web Store.

You can  use Pontem Wallet to store and send any tokens issued on the Aptos testnet. The wallet is integrated with Liquidswap, the first DEX (AMM) for Aptos, also developed by Pontem Network. The DEX features both regular uncorrelated pools and stable pools for correlated assets. It also has an integration with the Topaz and Souffl3 NFT marketplaces for Aptos.

Pontem’s other products include the browser code editor Move Playground,  the Move IntelliJ IDE plugin for developers and the Solidity to Move translator ByteBabel - the first implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine for Aptos.