Fundamentals of Mobile and Pervasive Computing

Chapter 7Service Discovery Middleware: Finding Needed Services

Mobility introduces interesting challenges for the delivery of services to clients because mobile devices typically are more resource-poor than their wired counterparts and know much less about their current environment. While a desktop computer typically has ready access to many peripheral devices such as printers, scanners, and tape backup, mobile clients are generally not bound to particular infrastructure, trading those bonds for increased freedom. In turn, mobile clients depend more on dynamic interaction with their environment, discovering services as needed.

Service discovery frameworks (e.g., Arnold et al., 1999; Guttman et al., 1999; Salutation, 1999; UPnP, 2003; Czerwinski ...