THE MOBIWARE TOOLKIT - PROGRAMMABLE SUPPORT FOR ADAPTIVE MOBILE NETWORKING

Existing mobile systems (e.g., mobile IP, mobile ATM, and third-genera tion cellular systems) lack the intrinsic architectural nexibility to deal with the complexity of supporting adaptive mobile applications in wireless and mobile environments. We believe that there is a need to develop alternative network architectures from the existing ones to de al with the tremendous demands placed on underlying mobile signaling, adaptation management, and wireless transport systems in support of ne w mobile services (e.g., interactive multimedia and Web access). In th is article we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of mo biware, a mobile middleware toolkit that enables adaptive mobile servi ces to dynamically exploit the intrinsic scalable properties of mobile multimedia applications in response to lime-varying mobile network co nditions. The mobiware toolkit is software-intensive (comet.columbia.e du/mobiware) and is built on CORBA and Java distributed object technol ogy. Based on an open programmable paradigm developed by the COMET Gro up, mobiware runs on mobile devices; wireless access points, and mobil e-capable switch/routers providing a set of open programmable interfac es and algorithms for adaptive mobile networking.