Middleware for distributed services and mobile applications

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we describe the middleware that has evolved from our attempt to develop location-aware and user-aware services in ubiquitous environments. User mobility can cause numerous problems and limitations: user-preferred applications are not installed in the new location or device, user-specific configurations are needed, there are different OS and platforms, limited resources in the new node and so on. These restrictions sometimes prevent the user from performing what is required, anywhere and anytime. We propose a system in which, by enabling code installation and execution on remote nodes, these limitations are controlled. A prototype implementation of this approach has been constructed and we present the rationale, design, implementation and applications of the prototype system.

REFERENCES

• 1: R. Jimeno , Z. Salvador , A. Lafuente , M. Larrea , A. Uribarren, An architecture for the personalized control of domotic resources, Proceedings of the 2nd European Union symposium on Ambient intelligence, November 08-10, 2004, Eindhoven, Netherlands [doi>10.1145/1031419.1031432]
• 2: Anind K. Dey, Understanding and Using Context, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, v.5 n.1, p.4-7, February 2001 [doi>10.1007/s007790170019]
• 3: M. Weiser, "The Computer for the Twenty-First Century", Scientific American, pp. 94--104, September 1991.
• 4: Nitin Sawhney , Chris Schmandt, Nomadic radio: speech and audio interaction for contextual messaging in nomadic environments, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), v.7 n.3, p.353-383, Sept. 2000 [doi>10.1145/355324.355327]
• 5: M. Satyanarayanan, Carnegie Mellon University & Intel Research Pittsburgh, "Seamless Mobility: in pursuit of the Holy Grail", PERCOM 2004 KeyNote Speech
• 6: Puerta, A. R. The Mecano Project: Comprehensive and Integrated Support for Model-Based Interface Development, Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces, ed. by Jean Vanderdonckt, Presses Universitaires de Namur, Namur, Belgium, pp. 19--25, 1996.
• 7: Shelley Powers. Digital Play Dough. Designing Applications with XUL, WebTechniques, vol. 5, issue 7, (July 2000).
• 8: JavaBeans, http://java.sun.com/products/javabeans.
• 9: Harmonia: http://www.harmonia.com.
• 10: Marc Abrams , Constantinos Phanouriou , Alan L. Batongbacal , Stephen M. Williams , Jonathan E. Shuster, UTML: an appliance-independent XML user interface language, Proceeding of the eighth international conference on World Wide Web, p.1695-1708, May 1999, Toronto, Canada
• 11: David Garlan , Dan Siewiorek , Asim Smailagic , Peter Steenkiste, Project Aura: Toward Distraction-Free Pervasive Computing, IEEE Pervasive Computing, v.1 n.2, p.22-31, April 2002 [doi>10.1109/MPRV.2002.1012334]
• 12: UPnP-Forum, Understanding UPnP., www.UPnP.org, 2005.
• 13: Bean Mark-up Language, http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/formula/bml
• 14: DACIA, http://www.eecs.umich.edu/_~aprakash/dacia/publications.html
• 15: Steven D. Gribble , Matt Welsh , Rob von Behren , Eric A. Brewer , David Culler , N. Borisov , S. Czerwinski , R. Gummadi , J. Hill , A. Joseph , R. H. Katz , Z. M. Mao , S. Ross , B. Zhao , Robert C. Holte, The Ninja architecture for robust Internet-scale systems and services373423, Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking, v.35 n.4, p.473-497, March 2001 [doi>10.1016/S1389-1286(00)00179-1]
• 16: M. Roman, C. K. Hess, R. Cerqueira, K. Narhstedt and R. H. Campbell, Gaia: A middleware infrastructure to enable active spaces, Technical Report UIUCDCSR20022265. University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 2002.
• 17: Francisco J. Ballesteros, Katial Leal, Gorka Guardiola, and Enrique Soriano. "The Design and Implementation of Plan B 3rd edition. A dynamic distributed computing environment." GSyC Tech. Rep 2004--05 Percom 2005.
• 18: OSGi Alliance. http://www.osgi.org, July 2005.
• 19: J. Allard , V. Chinta , S. Gundala , G. G. Richard III, Jini Meets UPnP: An Architecture for Jini/UPnP Interoperability, Proceedings of the 2003 Symposium on Applications and the Internet, p.268, January 27-31, 2003

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.4 Communications Management

General Terms:
Design, Management