Using Dynamic Proxies to Support RMI in a Mobile Environment

Abstract

The emergence of small, mobile computing devices such as personal digital assistants and cellular telephones has been driven by advances in computing and wireless communication technologies. The development of distributed applications for such mobile devices raises a number of problems not encountered in stationary computing. These problems may be divided into those posed to the management of mobile connections by intermittent network connectivity and limited bandwidth, and those posed to the location of mobile devices. The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) provides support for building distributed object oriented applications. The Architecture for Location Independent CORBA Environments (ALICE) provided a layered architecture for the support of CORBA objects in a mobile environment, whilst allowing mobile CORBA objects to interoperate with existing CORBA applications. Java RMI is another distributed object oriented model with poor existing support for operation in mobile environments. This project describes the prvision of mobility support to RMI applications in a mobile environment, re-using the application independent parts of ALICE. The project integrates the connectivity management offered by ALICE, into the RMI system and develops a location management scheme for RMI based on Dynamic Proxies. Collectively, these components allow the operation of RMI clients and servers in a mobile environment.