Mobile Computing
Lecture: 4
Lecture Overview
• Bearers
• MIDDLEWARE AND GATEWAYS
Bearers
• For different type of networks, there are different
types of transport bearers.
• These can be TCP/IP, http, protocols or dialup
connection.
• For GSM it could be SMS, USSD (Unstructured
Supplementary Service Data) or WAP.
• For mobile or fixed phone, it will be Voice.
MIDDLEWARE AND GATEWAYS
• Any software layered between a user application
and operating system can be termed as middleware.
• Middleware examples are
– communication middleware,
– object oriented middleware,
– message oriented middleware,
– transaction processing middleware,
– database middleware,
– behavior management middleware,
– RPC middleware
– etc.
MIDDLEWARE AND GATEWAYS
• There are some middleware components like behavior
management middleware, which can be a layer between
the client device and the application.
• In mobile computing context we need different types of
middleware components and gateways at different layers
of the architecture (Figure 1).
• These are:
1. Communication middleware
2. Transaction processing middleware
3. Behavior management middleware
4. Communication gateways.
Figure 1: A schematic Representation
of a Mobile Computing Environment
Communication Middleware
• The application will communicate with
different nodes and services through different
communication middleware.
• Different connectors for different services will
fall in this category.
• Examples could be TN3270 for IBM
mainframe services, or Javamail connector for
IMAP or POP3 services
Transaction Processing Middleware
• In many cases a service will offer session oriented dialogue
(SoD).
• For a session we need to maintain a state over the stateless
Internet.
• This is done through an application server.
• The user may be using a device, which demands a short
transaction whereas the service at the backend offers a SoD.
• In such cases a separate middleware component will be
required to convert a SoD to a short transaction.
• Management of the Web components will be handled by this
middleware as well.
Behavior Management Middleware
• For different devices we need different types of rendering.
• We can have applications, which are developed specially
for different types of rendering.
• For example, we can have one application for Web,
another for WAP, and a different one for SMS.
Behavior Management
Middleware
• On the contrary, we may choose to have a
middleware, which will manage entire device specific
rendering at the run time.
• This middleware will identify the device properly and
handle all the behavior related stuff independent of
the application.
• The system may be required to have some context
awareness.
• All these will be handled by behavior management
middleware.
Communication Gateways
• Between the device and the middleware there will be network
of networks.
• Gateways are deployed when there are different transport
bearers or networks with dissimilar protocols.
• For example, we need an IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
gateway to interface voice with a computer, or an WAP
gateway to access internet over a mobile phone.
• The following diagram (Figure 1) depicts a schematic
diagram of services in a mobile computing environment
where services from enterprise to a vending machine can be
used from different devices.
