P2P (peer-to-peer) and grid computing are hot new technologies that have been touted by the media and are popular in academic and industrial circles. From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client Server World provides a comprehensive, updated review of the new and improved distributed computing technology formed by the union of computing and communications.

As Ian J. Taylor points out, he wrote the book primarily for university students. It’s written like a textbook, and very well, too. You need a computing foundation and some familiarity with grid computing to grasp all the concepts. The book does, however, give a good overview of the technology before delving too deeply into the details. Each chapter builds the technical know-how needed for the next one. Taylor is a professor at the University of Cardiff. The book is based largely on his online notes on P2P and distributed systems, which have been valuable to many students, including me.

In addition, the book explains in detail recent technologies such as JXTA, Jini, Globus, and Freenet.Taylor also gives security, a rising concern with grid computing, the attention it deserves. He provides additional references for each chapter if you need more detail.