Odin: Context-Aware Middleware for Mobile Services

Abstract

Abstract-Mobile devices such as smart phones are increasing permeating society. With strides in computational power, coupled with the ability to connect to other small devices, smart phones are able to host novel services. To address the repetitive problems associated with mobile service development, namely service reachability, scalability and availability, we have developed Odin, which is a middleware platform for mobile service provisioning. Beyond providing a provisioning solution, Odin conserves scarce resources such as network bandwidth and device power supply. However, Odin has previously lacked an ability to take into account operational context. In this paper, we present context-aware extensions to Odin that further optimise resource usage. Augmented with support for context types that include location, performance, power and network, Odin is able to propagate context information to applications and dynamic adapt the middleware's behaviour. Novelty of the work lies in a solution whose device overhead is very low, and one that offers a coherent approach to context dissemination and adaptation. Based on quantitative evaluation, context-aware Odin's low overhead is demonstrated along with significant gains in resource conservation.

Extending mobile service middleware with support for context-aware service processing

“…This technique allows devices to remain reachable while using a mobile network, but introduces a tradeoff between service response time and the consumption of mobile network bandwidth. Odin dynamically adjusts the HTTP request period based on the service load experienced at any given time [3], [10]. When communicating over networks such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth where reachability is not an issue, other more lightweight interconnects can be used.…”

“…A reasoning engine is used to make adaptation decisions. This engine is configured with user policies dictating the relative importance of assets like CPU, bandwidth, and battery [2], [3]. This is a form of context-aware adaptation.…”

“…Towards the second goal, we are investigating a model-driven engineering approach featuring a visual language, abstracting away differences in target platforms [1]. This approach is to accompany Odin's existing context-awareness mechanisms [2], [3] to allow services to adapt both at compile-time and runtime.…”

Two-Level Software Architecture for Context-Aware Mobile Distributed Systems

“…En los sistemas de cómputo, la información de contexto es cualquier información que pueda emplearse para caracterizar la situación de una entidad, donde una entidad puede ser una persona, lugar u objeto que es considerado relevante entre un usuario y una aplicación (incluyendo al usuario y la aplicación misma) [1], [2], [4]- [7]. Actualmente ha surgido una tendencia en el desarrollo de sistemas distribuidos móviles conscientes de contexto con distintos tipos de aplicaciones tales como: un sistema que recomienda ciertos lugares de acuerdo a la ubicación y trayectoria de un usuario [8], un sistema que mejora la visualización de páginas web en función del perfil y el contexto actual del usuario [9] y un sistema que monitoriza los sensores de otros dispositivos, generando alarmas de acuerdo a la información obtenida [10].…”

“…_______________________ M Los retos clave para el desarrollo de este tipo de sistemas conscientes de contexto son: la adquisición, gestión y la forma en que se utiliza la información de contexto. Como solución a estos retos, se han propuesto arquitecturas de software que permiten llevar a cabo la construcción de sistemas conscientes de contexto sobre sistemas distribuidos móviles [3], [4]. Por otro lado, las arquitecturas conscientes de contexto también deben considerar los requerimientos que surgen a partir de las características propias de los sistemas distribuidos móviles [3], [4], [10] tales como: dispositivos móviles con limitadas capacidades de almacenamiento y procesamiento, obtención de información de contexto a partir de fuentes heterogéneas, desconexiones frecuentes de los dispositivos móviles y canales de comunicación con limitado ancho de banda.…”