Using CORBA applications in nomadic environments

Introduces Π², a proxy platform for CORBA-based applications in a nomadic environment. Nomadic computing presumes ubiquitous access to network services. An infrastructure providing the framework for nomadic users, therefore, has to support different network technologies and protocols. Wireless access networks offer widespread connectivity to nomadic users. However, distributed applications in a wireless environment often suffer from sudden connection losses, scarce bandwidth and high error rates when using TCP/IP. Hence, Π² transparently encapsulates the wireless link and splits the connection between the client on the mobile node and the server into separate parts. Π² can be transparently integrated into existing distributed systems without changes to clients or servers using a generic interface and dynamic type determination. It provides seamless handover between different networks, taking advantage of protocols especially tailored for wireless links, like WAP, and uses compression to reduce the required bandwidth. Furthermore, this platform flexibly provides value-added services for distributed applications like context- and location-awareness or caching, thus broadening the scope of the CORBA-based applications