Cecilia Mascolo, Licia Capra and Wolfgang Emmerich
Dept. of Computer Science,
University College London
Dept. of Computer Science
Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT UK
Abstract:
Recent advances in wireless networking technologies and the growing
success of mobile computing devices, such as laptop computers,
third generation mobile phones, personal digital assistants,
watches and the like, are enabling new classes of applications
that present challenging problems to designers. Mobile devices
face temporary loss of network connectivity when they move; they
are likely to have scarce resources, such as low battery power,
slow CPU speed and little memory; they are required to react to
frequent and unannounced changes in the environment, such as high
variability of network bandwidth, and in the remote resources
availability, and so on. To support designers building mobile
applications, research in the field of middleware systems has
proliferated. Middleware aims at facilitating communication and
coordination of distributed components, concealing difficulties
raised by mobility from application engineers as much as
possible. In this survey, we examine characteristics of mobile
distributed systems and distinguish them from their fixed
counterpart. We introduce a framework and a categorization of the
various middleware systems designed to support mobility, and we
present a detailed and comparative review of the major results
reached in this field. An analysis of current trends inside the
mobile middleware community and a discussion of further directions
of research conclude the survey.
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Updated on: 08/08/2002
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