Decentralized Networks
Is there a better way of storing and accessing data so that we can avoid cyber threats and avoid misuse of the power by a single organization?
The answer is to build and establish a new type of Data Network called Decentralized Network. In a Decentralized Network the data is NOT stored in a single place, instead it is distributed among network of servers called Nodes. These nodes have ability to talk to each other and share resources through a peer-to-peer network protocol.
What is Peer-to-Peer Network (P2P)
In Peer-to-Peer network computing, tasks or workloads are partitioned among Peers also called Nodes. Peers have equal privileges so they can share resources (eg disk storage, processing power etc) with the other peers in the network. Peers are both suppliers and consumer of the resources unlike Client-Server model where clients always make request which is then served by dedicated hosts called servers.
In a Peer-to-Peer environment, Peers don’t need central coordination by servers (intermediary) making the architecture decentralized and distributed by design. This then means two peers can communicate and transact between each other without the need of an intermediary party. Bitcoin is a classic use case of Peer-to-Peer Network in action, but the versatility of this powerful technology extends to every data sharing scenario.
The Advantages of Decentralized Network
Decentralized network then offers following benefits:
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- Immune from Cyber Attacks: The data is stored in an encrypted format and is accessible through a special key called cryptographic hash key. This arrangement makes decentralized networks secure by design and hacker resistant.
- No one party holds the data: Data now is distributed among nodes instead of centralized servers hence ensuring that one single organization does not have all the power to control the data.