Supporting Mobile Collaboration with Service-Oriented Mobile Units Andrés Neyem, Sergio F. Ochoa Computer Science Department Universidad de Chile

Outline Motivation Challenges for Mobile Collaboration Related Work The SOMU Platform Application Example Conclusions and Future Work

Motivation Wandering Education Scenarios Service Providers Productive Scenarios Mobile computing devices and wireless technologies are promoting new collaboration scenarios. Now we can support interaction among people while walking… … this paper is focused on the mobile collaboration scenarios were not fixed communication infrastructure can be used.. And where there are participants of heterogenous sources are involved in the process. Disaster Relief

Mobile Collaboration – Scenario I Construction Management Dispersed teams working on the construction site. Teams do not belong to the same company. Inspectors records the advances and problems in the infrastructure. They need to be on the move to carry out the assigned work. They are not able to use fixed communication infrastructure. They have to communicate and share such information. In order to explain the mobile workers activities I will explain two work scenarios… There are several teams in charge of civil/electrical infrastructure, security issues, … Inspector using mobile computing devices Record the data and integrate the results in order to keep the control of the projects and to make the appropriate and on-time decisions. Mobility, data synchronization, interoperability.Limited hardware resources..

Mobile Collaboration – Scenario II Disaster Relief Dispersed teams working on the affected area. Teams do not belong to the same organization. First responders records the advances and problems in the relief process. They need to be on the move to carry out the assigned work. They are not able to use fixed communication infrastructure. They have to communicate and share such information. - Diversity of actors: firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, civil engineers. - Highly mobility of actors. - Strong communication restrictions (data transmission, routing, obstacles). High information availability. Interoperability.. Limited hardware resources.. interoperabilty

Outline Motivation Challenges for Mobile Collaboration Related Work The SOMU Platform Application Example Conclusions and Future Work

Mobile Collaboration - Challenges Actors have to be on the move to carry out their activities. They need autonomous solutions. They need interoperable solutions. They need a space to share and synchronize data. They have to deal with limited hardware resources. Well in scenarios like these…

Outline Motivation Challenges for Mobile Collaboration Related Work The SOMU Platform Application Example Conclusions and Future Work

Related Work LaCOLLA JXTA iClouds Nokia Framework Middleware for Mobile Collaboration LaCOLLA iClouds YCab / YCab.Net JXTA Nokia Framework PASIR Middleware for Peer-to-Peer Data Sharing LIME JavaSpaces Grace FT-Linda T-Spaces XMiddle

Outline Motivation Challenges for Mobile Collaboration Related Work The SOMU Platform Application Example Conclusions and Future Work

The SOMU Platform Wandering A lightweight software platform that allows to autonomous units: Productive Scenarios Interoperate in ad-hoc wireless settings. Share/synchronize data. Detect peer proximity. Manage asynchronous interactions. To deal with the problems of autonomy, interoperability, data sharing and limited hardware resources we are proposing SOMU Disaster Relief

SOMU Design Decisions How to support: the users mobility? applications and information interoperability? the users autonomy?

Support for Users Mobility: MANET What is an ad-hoc network? A collection of wireless nodes that can be dynamically self-organized into an arbitrary and temporary topology to form a network without necessarily using any pre-existing infrastructure. B A

Support for Users Mobility: MANET What is an ad-hoc network? A collection of wireless nodes that can be dynamically self-organized into an arbitrary and temporary topology to form a network without necessarily using any pre-existing infrastructure. At the same time we have: B wireless communication nodes mobility connectivity and routing infrastructureless network Why ad-hoc networks? Potential easy deployment Not expensive Self-organizing Decreased dependence of infrastructure A

Support for Users Interoperability: Web Services Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) is a paradigm which emphasis on highly specialized, modular and platform agnostic code facilitating interoperability of systems. Registry discovery publish The service model is composed of three components: Provider, Consumer and Registry. Consumer Provider use service

Service-Oriented Computing in MANET The service model needs to adapt itself to the new networking conditions Registry cannot lookup cannot register Consumer Provider The service model is composed of three components: Provider, Consumer and Registry. could use service communication range

Service-Oriented Computing in MANET The service model needs to adapt itself to the new networking conditions Registry lookup publish Consumer Provider The service model is composed of three components: Provider, Consumer and Registry. cannot use service communication range

Support for Users Autonomy: Fully Distributed Mobile Collaborative Application A Mobile Collaborative Application B Mobile Collaborative Applications Mobile Collaborative Applications API SOMU Platform SOMU Platform TCP/IP

Support for Users Autonomy: Fully Distributed Mobile Collaborative Application A Mobile Collaborative Application B We design a lightweight and fully distributed middleware, able to expose and consume Web services. Mobile Collaborative Applications Mobile Collaborative Applications API SOMU Platform SOMU Platform TCP/IP

Mobile Collaborative Applications Mobile Units Profile Manager The SOMU Architecture Mobile Collaborative Applications API SOMU Platform Local Storage Web Services Shared Files Units Profiles Work Items WebServer SOAP Component HTTP Component Mobile Units Profile Manager SOMU Manager Mobile Units Near Me Listener Multicast TCP/IP

Mobile Collaborative Application A Mobile Collaborative Application B The SOMU Architecture Mobile Collaborative Application A Local request to invoke the remote service 1 Mobile Collaborative Application B Manager create the work item 2 Manager asks if node “B” is in online 3 Invoke the remote service 4 μWebServer receive the invocation 5 1 8 6.2 6.1 μWebServer returns the results μWebServer send an event μWebServer activate the WS 6 μWebServer Mobile Units Near Me Web Services Manager remove the work item 7 SOMU Manager 6 Manager notifies the finalization of the invocation process 8 2 SOMU Platform SOMU Platform 7 3 4 5 Mobile Units Near Me TCP/IP Multicast

Outline Motivation Challenges for Mobile Collaboration Related Work The SOMU Platform Application Example Conclusions and Future Work

Application Example Disaster Relief Command Post Civil Engineers Police Officers Medical Firefighters

Mobile Collaborative Application B Application Example Local request to invoke the synchronization 1 Mobile Collaborative Application B Manager create the work item 2 Manager asks if node “B” is in online 3 Invoke the remote service 4 μWebServer receive the invocation 5 1 8 6.2 6.1 μWebServer returns the results μWebServer send an event μWebServer activate the WS SyncXML 6 μWebServer Mobile Units Near Me Web Services Manager remove the work item 7 SOMU Manager 6 Manager notifies the finalization of the invocation process 8 2 SOMU Platform SOMU Platform 7 3 4 5 Mobile Units Near Me TCP/IP Multicast

Outline Motivation Challenges for Mobile Collaboration Related Work The SOMU Platform Application Example Conclusions and Future Work

Conclusions The SOMU platform proposes a lightweight and fully decentralized solution. It allows mobile devices to act as autonomous units. It allows to share data and synchronize XML documents. It allows interoperability exposing and consuming Web services.

Future Work Consider the context information to support self-organization. Design and embed context-aware solutions for several groupware design issues, such as: floor control, session management and roles support. Formal experimentation to understand the SOMU contributions and limitations.

Thank you …