Architectural styles for opportunistic mobile communication: requirements and design patterns

ABSTRACT

Mobile computing has been in the research epicenter for several decades. We have seen drastic shifts with mobile computing systems and wireless ad hoc networks dynamically adapting to create co-operating nodes that provide the right services at the right time. One aspect of such systems that has been poorly addressed is the complexity of developing applications for mobile users that require group interactions in large scale networks, especially between people unfamiliar with one another but with similar goals. Such systems need to know the type of social interaction, the context of all participants and nodes in the network, and a proper architectural design to implement scalability up to city wide networks. In this paper, we analyze which architectural styles and design patterns are the best suited the implement the various interaction requirements. We address scalability for interactions in large-scale networks from a software architectural perspective and focus on event-driven service oriented architectures to make the design of context-aware systems for large-scale mobile interactions a less complex task.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Information filtering

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures
            Subjects: Patterns (e.g., client/server, pipeline, blackboard)

  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Selection process
      H.3.5 On-line Information Services
          Subjects: Data sharing

General Terms:
Design, Performance

Keywords:
context-awareness, event-driven architecture, publish-subscribe, scalability