Programming Pervasive and Mobile Computing Applications: The TOTA Approach

摘要

Pervasive and mobile computing call for suitable middleware and programming models to supportrnthe activities of complex software systems in dynamic network environments. In this article wernpresent TOTA ("Tuples On The Air"), a novel middleware and programming approach for support-rning adaptive context-aware activities in pervasive and mobile computing scenarios. The key idea inrnTOTA is to rely on spatially distributed tuples, adaptively propagated across a network on the basis of application-specific rules, for both representing contextual information and supporting uncoupled interactions between application components. TOTA promotes a simple way of programming that facilitates access to distributed information, navigation in complex environments, and the achievement of complex coordination tasks in a fully distributed and adaptive way, mostly freeing programmers and system managers from the need to take care of low-level issues related to network dynamics. This article includes both application examples to clarify concepts and performance figures to show the feasibility of the approach.