Databases, information systems, and peer-to-peer computing

The aim of the International Workshop on Databases, Information Systems and P2P Computing was to explore the promise of P2P to o? er exciting new p- sibilities in distributed information processing and database technologies. The realization of this promise lies fundamentally in the availability of enhanced services such as structured ways for classifying and registering shared infor- tion, veri? cation and certi? cation of information, content distributed schemes and quality of content, security features, information discovery and accessib- ity, interoperation and composition of active information services, and ? nally market-based mechanisms to allow cooperative and noncooperative information exchanges. The P2P paradigm lends itself to constructing large-scale, complex, adaptive, autonomous and heterogeneous database and information systems, endowed with clearly speci? ed and di? erential capabilities to negotiate, bargain, coordinate and self-organize the information exchanges in large-scale networks. This vision will have a radical impact on the structure of complex organizations (business, sci- ti? c or otherwise) and on the emergence and the formation of social communities, and on how the information is organized and processed. The P2P information paradigm naturally encompasses static and wireless connectivity and static and mobile architectures. Wireless connectivity combined with the increasingly small and powerful mobile devices and sensors poses new challenges as well as opp- tunities to the database community. Information becomes ubiquitous, highly distributed and accessible anywhere and at any time over highly dynamic, - stable networks with very severe constraints on the information management and processing capabilities.