Middleware support for delay-tolerant service provision in disconnected mobile ad hoc networks

• Published in: 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Maheo, Y., Said, R., Guidec, F.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2008
• Subjects: Access protocols; Delay; Disruption tolerant networking; Java; Laboratories; Middleware; Mobile ad hoc networks; Prototypes; Routing protocols; Wireless networks
• ISBN: 1424416930; 9781424416936
• ISSN: 1530-2075
• DOI: 10.1109/IPDPS.2008.4536339

The service-oriented approach is known to be adequate for building distributed applications for mobile ad hoc networks, and a number of successful research works using this approach in routed MANETs have already been conducted. Yet, providing support for service-oriented applications poses specific problems in disconnected MANETs where end-to-end connectivity is not guaranteed. This paper presents a prototype Java middleware support for delay- tolerant service provision in disconnected MANETs. It first describes the lower layer of this middleware, which implements a protocol for document dissemination that leverages on delay-tolerant, opportunistic and content-based communication. It then explains how service discovery and service invocation mechanisms can be implemented on top of this protocol. Finally, simulation results are presented, which show that this approach gives good results compared with an alternative approach that consists in exploiting single-hop interactions between service providers and service clients.