Exploring Multi-path Communication in Hybrid Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

International audienceAmbient computing requires the integration of multiple mobile heterogeneous networks. Multi-path communication, in such scenarios, can provide reliability and privacy benefits. Even though the properties of multi-path routing have been already extensively studied and a number of algorithms have been proposed, implementation of such techniques can be tricky, particularly when resource-constrained nodes are connected to each other through hybrid networks with different characteristics. In this paper we discuss the challenges involved in implementing multi-path communication on a middleware for hybrid mobile ad hoc networks. We present the PLASTIC middleware, some compelling applications of multi-path communication and the main issues concerning their implementation as a middleware-provided communication primitive

A Reference Model for Service Oriented Middleware

From the software engineering perspective, the notion of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been receiving significant attention within the software design and development community. This attention has led to the proliferation of conflicting characterizations of SOA, resulting in an ambiguous understanding of SOA entities and relationships among them. To achieve a common understanding, OASIS and SeCSE propose reference models that introduce a comprehensive ontology for modeling software services around the well known service-oriented interaction pattern. However OASIS and SeCSE models abstract the actual interaction pattern runtime support, which is generally provided by a Service Oriented Middleware (SOM). In this paper we propose a reference model for architecting SOM solutions over next generation networking environment and evaluate it by designing a conforming lower-level model for the SOM developed for the PLASTIC project

A Perspective on the Future of Middleware-based Software Engineering

International audienceMiddleware is a software layer that stands between the networked operating system and the application and provides well known reusable solutions to frequently encountered problems like heterogeneity, interoperability, security, dependability. Further, with networks becoming increasingly pervasive, middleware appears as a major building block for the development of future software systems. Starting with the impact of pervasive networking on computing models, manifested by now common grid and ubiquitous computing, this paper surveys related challenges for the middleware and related impact on the software development. Indeed, future applications will need to cope with advanced non-functional properties such as contextawareness and mobility, for which adequate middleware support must be devised together with accompanying software development notations, methods and tools. This leads us to introduce our view on next generation middleware, considering both technological advances in the networking area but also the need for closer integration with software engineering best practices, to ultimately suggest middleware-based software processes

ubiSOAP: A Service Oriented Middleware for Ubiquitous Networking

International audienceThe computing and networking capacities of today's wireless portable devices allow for ubiquitous services, which are seamlessly networked. Indeed, wireless handheld devices now embed the necessary resources to act as both service clients and providers. However, the ubiquitous networking of services remains challenged by the inherent mobility and resource constraints of the devices, which make services a priori highly volatile. This paper discusses the design, implementation and experimentation of the ubiSOAP service-oriented middleware, which leverages wireless networking capacities to effectively enable the ubiquitous networking of services. ubiSOAP specifically defines a layered communication middleware that underlies standard SOAP-based middleware, hence supporting legacy Web Services while exploiting nowadays ubiquitous connectivity

Energetic Performance of Service-oriented Multi-radio Networks: Issues and Perspectives

Wireless devices now hold multiple radio interfaces, allowing to switch from one network to another according to required connectivity and related quality. Still, the selection of the best radio interface for a specific connection is under the responsibility of the end-user in most cases. Integrated multi-radio network management so as to improve the overall performance of the network(s) has led to a number of research efforts over the last few years. However, several challenges remain due to the inherent complexity of the problem. This paper specifically concentrates on the comprehensive analysis of energy-efficient multi-radio networking for pervasive computing. Building upon the service oriented architectural style, we consider pervasive networks of services, which are deployed on the various networked nodes. The issue is then to optimize the energetic performance of the pervasive network through careful selection of the radio link over which service access should be realized for each such access. This leads us to examine first the energetic performance of service access for most common wireless interfaces in use today (Bluetooth, WiFi and GPRS) and then introduce a formal model of service-oriented multi-radio networks. The proposed model enables characterizing the optimal network configuration in terms of energetic performance, which is shown to be a NP-hard problem and thus requires adequate approximation

Proceedings of the First International DisCoTec Workshop on Context-aware Adaptation Mechanisms for Pervasive and Ubiquitous Services (CAMPUS 2008) Divide and Conquer -Organizing Component-based Adaptation in Distributed Environments Divide and Conquer -O

Abstract: This paper introduces a divide and conquer approach for organizing the adaptation of distributed applications in a potentially large number of interacting middleware instances. In such an environment, a centralistic and static adaptation reasoning i) is inadequate and ii) gives the same priority to all applications. The divide and conquer method aims at minimizing the interference between running applications, allowing users to weight the priority of applications, and organizing the adaptation and the reasoning about the adaptation in a decentralized and flexible way