At home in service discovery

Modern computer systems (since 1950s) evolved from being bulky, unreliable and expensive, to being tiny, reliable, cheaper and faster. Improvements in size, expense and performance was due to the evolution in computer hardware; from vacuum tubes, magnetic tapes, integrated circuits, to very large-scale integration (VLSI) of thousands of transistors and other circuit elements onto a single chip. The drop in cost and size led to the introduction of personal computers (PCs) for use in office, schools, and homes. Together with developments such as network technologies (LAN, WAN, WLAN, the Internet, etc), and application softwares, computer systems are no longer just calculators, but multipurpose devices. We use these devices for watching movies, making phone calls, sending emails, controlling remote devices, driving, etc

Service discovery at home

Service discovery is a fairly new field that kicked off since the advent of ubiquitous computing and has been found essential in the making of intelligent networks by implementing automated discovery and remote control between devices. This paper provides an overview and comparison of several prominent service discovery mechanisms currently available. It also introduces the at home anywhere service discovery protocol (SDP@HA) design which improves on the current state of the art by accommodating resource lean devices, implementing a dynamic leader election for a central cataloguing device and embedding robustness to the service discovery architecture as an important criterion

A Taxonomy of Self-configuring Service Discovery Systems

We analyze the fundamental concepts and issues in service discovery. This analysis places service discovery in the context of distributed systems by describing service discovery as a third generation naming system. We also describe the essential architectures and the functionalities in service discovery. We then proceed to show how service discovery fits into a system, by characterizing operational aspects. Subsequently, we describe how existing state of the art performs service discovery, in relation to the operational aspects and functionalities, and identify areas for improvement

Programming the smart home

A smart home is a house that is responsive to its inhabitants and their actions by being aware of their context. Potential applications for smart homes address economic and comfort aspects of living, or could provide unobtrusive support for the elderly or disabled to promote independent living. The basic building blocks of such a smart home is a computing system consisting of distributed sensors and actuators. Programming and maintaining such an infrastructure is challenging because suitable programming abstractions are currently missing. In this paper we introduce the notion of programmable space that lets the application developer perceive the smart home as an integrated runtime environment. This approach is implemented in a system called RuleCaster. Applications are developed in a high-level rulebased language. Our approach shows a notable simplification of application development and maintenance. To verify the utility of RuleCaster we use a scenario-based evaluation method

A taxonomy of service discovery Systems

Service discovery is a platform for network entities, whether hardware or software, to spontaneously self-configure and self-heal in a volatile environment. An in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of service discovery is essential for system architects to effectively execute pervasive and autonomous context-aware applications. We offer this understanding by clarifying some fundamental concepts and issues in service discovery; the evolution of service discovery in the context of distributed systems, the basic architectures and their variance and the different functionalities that contribute towards satisfying the self-configuring and self-healing properties of service discovery.\ud We then proceed to show how service discovery fits into a system, by characterizing operational aspects. Subsequently, we describe how existing state of the art performs service discovery, in relation to the operational aspects and functionalities, and identify areas for future work