Fun Fact: The earliest known printed reference to “point-to-point” can be traced all the way back to 1875—to a Times article describing a “Point to Point Steeplechase.”1

What’s a point-to-point steeplechase? It was a type of horse race popular in the UK around the 18th century among hunters who would keep their horses fit by racing them between prominent church steeples.

More fun: The earliest known reference to “point-to-point” that didn’t involve horses and steeples can be traced back to the 1930s, when the term was used by the Telegraph & Telephone Journal to describe radio communications between two endpoints.1

Fast forward a bit and we find “point-to-point” adopted by the rapidly evolving computing industry, in which “Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)” gets defined as a direct data link layer between two routers.

That’s a long history for an idea that still governs lab infrastructure, right?

Right.

What’s a centuries-old method doing in today’s labs?

Look around the lab and you’ll find point-to-point connections everywhere. Instruments, applications, informatics systems, web services—they’re all connected point-to-point, creating a complex and multi-layered technological web.

Why is that problematic?

Because..

  • Data gets siloed within those individual connections
  • Many point-to-point connections are vendor-specific and proprietary
  • Point-to-point connections must be constantly updated, which costs time and money
  • Point-to-point connections make it impossible to support every endpoint and workflow combination in the lab
  • Point-to-point connections delay the advancement of science

Enough said?

From point-to-point to peer-to-peer

At Scitara, we believe that point-to-point lab infrastructure is an impediment to scientific progress.

We believe that a decentralized peer-to-peer structure mobilizes data across all endpoints in a lab’s enterprise and enables scientists to access and exchange data at will.

And we believe a universally connected lab can clear a shorter path to the next breakthrough.

These are the ideas behind our Scientific Integration Platform, which connects everything in the lab to a common, cloud-based platform—making it possible for labs to finally complete their digital transformations.

Talk to one of our reps to learn more.

1 https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/point-to-point.html

About Scitara
Scitara is a global provider of cloud-based, industry-specific platform and solutions for the life sciences industry. Based in Massachusetts, the Scitara leadership brings decades of experience in solving digital challenges for the scientific laboratory: Meet the Modern Lab™. For more information, please visit www.scitara.com.