Session Mobility in the Mockets Communication Middleware

Abstract

Taking advantage of the benefits of modern networking, a growing number of users are exhibiting mobile behavior. As they roam between different network localities, they access the Internet and the Web exploiting both wired and wireless communications and using several heterogeneous devices. Mobile users want to access their subscribed services anywhere, anytime, and want to preserve their currently opened service sessions as they roam between different network localities or switch between different devices. Mobile userspsila requirements call for novel middlewares to provide support for mobility on top of the traditional Internet infrastructure. In this context, we have developed Mockets, a communication middleware specifically designed to address the challenges of wireless networks and mobile computing. In particular, Mockets supports session mobility in terms of seamless handover for preservation of end-to-end connectivity in spite of node mobility, automatic detection and exploitation of best available connectivity, and migration of service session endpoints from one node to another