ITR: A Mobile Component Framework for Building Adaptive Distributed Applications

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

Users increasingly want to use Internet applications for information access and processing from a variety of fixed and mobile networked computing devices, such as desktops, cell phones, and PDAs. These devices have different capabilities, are not equally secure, and operate under different network conditions. Mobile users may also want to transfer an on-going communication activity from one device (e.g., a desktop) to a different device (e.g., a PDA). The proposed research aims to design a software framework for building distributed applications to meet these emerging needs. A key concept is to use mobile, context-aware communicating components to compose distributed applications. Using component mobility across devices, system designers can build robust and responsive applications that adapt to varying network connectivity and to various device capabilities. The framework will also allow applications to adapt to changes by dynamically adding and removing components, or by replacing a set of components with another set. To allow users to move active work across devices, communication among components will handle component mobility and tolerate transient disconnections. This research will address performance issues, develop software methodology to accommodate device heterogeneity, and explore solutions to handling security concerns in using the framework to build distributed applications.