Secure P2P Home Networking Product
Business Requirement
Leverage Internet, cryptography and distributed computing technologies to build an easy to use home network management and inter-network collaboration software on Windows. This allows home networks to discover and inter-operate easily with one another. The software should also collaborate with residential gateway devices.
Client is a leading residential gateway software solutions company.
Schematic
Our Role
We assisted with product visualization, prototyping of potential technologies, complete system study, architecture and implementation.
Solution
The software runs on individual PCs on a home network and provides a single point user interface for resource/device management. It also talks to a residential gateway built by the client. The software allows home networks to create VPN partnerships with one another, dynamically discover them and attach/detach multiple such networks to their own. This allows remote resources to be visible on the local network and enables remote operations like printing, file transfer and more.
P2P - A modified form of the Gnutella P2P protocol was used to discover remote home networks. Networks were secured using RSA (public key) and Blowfish encryption. Sophisticated distributed algorithms were used to handle fault-tolerance, election, delegation, publish-subscribe event models and local and remote collaboration. A component model was designed and implemented, allowing feature enhancements and additions to the software through Internet downloads. A custom protocol was implemented to synchronize network database information with the client’s residential gateway device (if one is present). We also developed printer drivers to do remote printing through the HP JetSend protocol.
A web site was also created where network owners could register and create partnership agreements that are digitally signed.
We are also developing a firewall and a full service NAT (Network Address Translator) for a VxWorks version of the client’s residential gateway device.
The first version of the product was delivered in 3 months.