From location databases to pervasive catalog

One characteristic of next generation wireless mobile environments is the high level of interoperability between mobile applications and services. This imposes significant demand on knowledge maintained by the wireless network about itself (system meta-data). Maintaining a repository of wireless meta-data in the way that location databases are maintained is not sufficient to support adaptable application interoperability. The availability/freshness/precision requirements for the system meta-data are different from the requirements for location data and involve more complex monitoring queries. In this paper we examine the problem of implementing and maintaining a wireless interoperable infrastructure with a comprehensive meta-data repository-a pervasive catalog system. Our proposed pervasive catalog system utilizes advanced data management methods in a wireless environment and is structured as a dynamic hierarchy of meta-repositories, consolidating meta-data at different levels of detail.