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DATA MANAGEMENT ISSUES

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Data Management Issues:
A mobile database is a database which can be connected to by a mobile
computing device over a mobile network. The client and server have wireless
connections. A cache is maintained to hold frequent data and transactions so
that they are not lost due to connection failure. A database is a structured way
to organize information. With the advances in mobile technology and portable
mobile devices, which include handheld mobile phones, their larger counterpart,
personal device assistance and the laptop, are becoming increasingly useful tools
for mobile users. Modern technologies have provided portable computers with
wire-less interfaces that allow networked communication even while a user is
mobile. Wireless networking greatly enhances the utility of a portable computing
device. The mobile users can access information independent of their physical
location through wireless connections.
Today’s mobile systems are mainly based on digital technology but analog
systems are in use too. Users desire that a mobile unit should have transaction
management capability which will allow a user to perform everyday activities.
These demands and creative thinking laid down the foundation of Mobile
Database System which is a distributed client/ server database system where the
entire processing environment is mobile.

MOBILE DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

SQL Anywhere Technologies: SQL Anywhere Server is a high performing and

embeddable relational database-management system (RDBMS) that scales from
thousands of users in server environments down to desktop and mobile
applications used in widely deployed, zero-administration environments.

Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi

IMRT, Lucknow
 • QAnywhere: QAnywhere facilitates the development of robust and secure
store-and-forward mobile messaging applications.
• SQL Remote: SQL Remote technology is based on a store and forward
architecture that allows occasionally connected users to synchronize data
between SQL Anywhere databases using a file or message transfer
mechanism.

Mobile databases typically involve three parties: fixed hosts, mobile units, and
base stations. Fixed hosts perform the transaction and data management
functions with the help of database servers. Mobile units are portable computers
that move around a geographical region that includes the cellular network (or
"cells") that these units use to communicate to base stations. Base stations are
two-way radios, installations in fixed locations that pass communications with
the mobile units to and from the fixed hosts. They are typically low-power devices
such as mobile phones, portable phones, or wireless routers. A cellular mobile
network is similar to that of Mobile Network Architecture. It consists of Mobile
Client (MC) containing data centric applications roaming between wireless cells
and accesses a centralized database (fixed host). Some of the fixed hosts called
Mobile Support Stations (MSSs), are augmented with wireless interfaces. The
wireless channel is separated into two sub-channels: an uplink channel and a
downlink channel. The uplink channel is used by MCs to submit queries, while the
downlink channel is used by MSSs to answers from the server to target mobile
client.

DATABASE ACCESS IN MOBILE ENVIRONMENT

Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi

IMRT, Lucknow
Hoarding Techniques:
A database is a collection of systematically stored records or information.
Databases store data in a particular logical manner. A mobile device is not
always connected to the server or network; neither does the device retrieve data
from a server or a network for each computation. Rather, the device caches some
specific data, which may be required for future computations, during the interval
in which the device is connected to the server or network. Caching entails saving
a copy of select data or a part of a database from a connected system with a
large database. The cached data is hoarded in the mobile device database.
Hoarding of the cached data in the database ensures that even when the device
is not connected to the network, the data required from the database is available
for computing.
The advantage of hoarding is that there is no access latency (delay in retrieving
the queried record from the server over wireless mobile networks). The client
device API has instantaneous data access to hoarded or cached data. After a
device caches the data distributed by the server, the data is hoarded at the
device. The disadvantage of hoarding is that the consistency of the cached data
with the database at the server needs to be maintained.

Data Replication in Mobile Computing:

Data Replication in mobile computing means the sharing of information to
ensure data consistency between software and hardware resources connected
via the internet, to improve reliability, availability, fault-tolerance, and
accessibility of data.
In simpler terms, data replication is the process of storing different copies of the
database at two or more sites in order to improve data availability in less time
and at a cheaper cost. Data replication encompasses duplication of transactions
on an ongoing basis, so that the replicate is in a consistently updated state and
synchronized with the source. However in data replication data is available at
different locations, but a particular relation has to reside at only one location.
There can be full replication, in which the whole database is stored at every site.
There can also be partial replication, in which some frequently used fragment of
the database are replicated and others are not replicated.

Adaptive Clustering in Mobile Networks:

An adaptive clustering environment is proposed that uses Q-learning to learn the
reward values of successive data clustering. Adaptive clustering supports the
reuse of clustering by memorizing what worked well in the past. It has the
capability of exploring multiple paths in parallel when searching for good
clusters.

Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi

IMRT, Lucknow
Another important wireless network feature addressed in this paper is
multihopping, i.e. the ability of the radios to relay packets from one to another
without the use of base stations. Most of the nomadic computing applications
today are based on a single hop radio connection to the wired network (Internet
or ATM). Figure 1 shows the cellular model commonly used in the wireless
networks. A, B, C, and D are fixed base stations connected by a wired backbone.
Nodes 1 through 8 are mobile nodes. A mobile node is only one hop away from
a base station. Communications between two mobile nodes must be through
fixed base stations and the wired backbone.

SINGLE-HOP MOBILE DEVICE IN MOBILE NETWORKS

Interestingly, the multi-hop requirement may also arise in cellular networks. If a

base station fails, a mobile node may not be able to access the wired network in
a single hop. For example, in Figure 2, if base station B fails, node 4 must access
base stations A or C through node 2 or node 5 which act as wireless multi-hop
repeaters.

MULTI-HOP MOBILE DEVICE IN MOBILE NETWORKS

Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi

IMRT, Lucknow
File System for Mobile Devices:
Mobility is now an major feature of computer systems: over the past decade,
laptops and hand-held devices capable of wireless network access have become
common, and wireless networks are also proliferating. Applications that run on
hosts in wireless networks must cope with constraints on access to data that are
generally not present in wired networks. Distance from a base station,
contention with other hosts or processes on the same host, interference, and
switching between different wireless media all compound the variability in
network performance to which applications must adapt if they are to perform
well.
Existing work in cache management for mobile file systems incorporates
mechanisms for making efficient use of available bandwidth. However, it has
mostly focused on adapting existing systems to cope with periods of low
bandwidth, in a style which we will refer to as modal adaptation. When
bandwidth is high, the application communicates normally; when bandwidth
falls below a threshold, the application enters a low- bandwidth mode in which
communication is restricted or deferred. More generally, an application has a
small number of possible modes and chooses the appropriate one based on the
currently available bandwidth. For example, in the Coda File System, the cache
manager operates in either a strongly-connected, weakly-connected, or
disconnected mode, which affects the policy for writing changes to files back to
the server.

MOBILE FILE SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

We describe here MFS (Mobile File System), a flexible cache manager for a
distributed file system client, which differs from traditional cache manager
design in two important respects. First, MFS uses an RPC library supporting
priorities to enable mode- less adaptation, which allocates available bandwidth
Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi
IMRT, Lucknow
based on the types of messages being sent. By assigning priorities appropriately,
foreground activities, such as retrieving files, can proceed concurrently with
background activities such as writing back changes, under the assurance that if
bandwidth becomes scarce, the background activities, rather than the
foreground ones, will be penalised first. Modeless adaptation using prioritised
communication also allows MFS to be more flexible in response to bandwidth
variations than would be possible with a modal scheme. Second, MFS
incorporates a new cache consistency algorithm to efficiently provide a high
degree of consistency for access to shared files, which is required for
collaborative work applications.

MOBILE FILE SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

Coda File System:

Coda is a distributed file system developed as a research project at Carnegie
Mellon University since 1987 under the direction of Mahadev Satyanarayanan.
It descended directly from an older version of Andrew File System (AFS-2) and
offers many similar features. The InterMezzo file system was inspired by Coda.
Coda uses a local cache to provide access to server data when the network
connection is lost. During normal operation, a user reads and writes to the file
system normally, while the client fetches, or "hoards", all of the data the user
has listed as important in the event of network disconnection. If the network
connection is lost, the Coda client's local cache serves data from this cache and
logs all updates. This operating state is called disconnected operation. Upon
network reconnection, the client moves to reintegration state; it sends logged
updates to the servers. Then it transitions back to normal connected-mode
operation.

Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi

IMRT, Lucknow
Also different from AFS is Coda's data replication method. AFS uses a pessimistic
replication strategy with its files, only allowing one read/write server to receive
updates and all other servers acting as read-only replicas. Coda allows all servers
to receive updates, allowing for a greater availability of server data in the event
of network partitions, a case which AFS cannot handle.

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Emulation Reintegration

Physical
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CODA FILE SYSTEM

These unique features introduce the possibility of semantically diverging copies

of the same files or directories, known as "conflicts". Disconnected operation's
local updates can potentially clash with other connected users' updates on the
same objects, preventing reintegration. Optimistic replication can potentially
cause concurrent updates to different servers on the same object, preventing
replication. The former case is called a "local/global" conflict, and the latter case
a "server/server" conflict. Coda has extensive repair tools, both manual and
automated, to handle and repair both types of conflicts.

b*a

Dr. Qaim Mehdi Rizvi

IMRT, Lucknow