UNIT-I

INTRODUCTION : MOBILITY OF BITS AND BYTES - WIRELESS THE BEGINNING -

MOBILE COMPUTING - DIALOGUE CONTROL - NETWORKS – MIDDLEWARE AND
GATEWAYS – APPLICATION AND SERVICES – DEVELOPING MOBILE COMPUTER
APPLICATIONS – SECURITY IN MOBILE COMPUTING – STANDARDS – WHY IS IT
NECESSARY – STANDARD BODIES.
MOBILE COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE : HISTORY OF COMPUTERS AND INTERNET –
ARCHITECTURE FOR MOBILE COMPUTING – THREE-TIER ARCHITECTURE – DESIGN
CONSIDERATIONS FOR MOBILE COMPUTING – MOBILE COMPUTING THROUGH
INTERNET – MAKING EXITING APPLICATIONS MOBILE ENABLED.

MOBILITY OF BITS AND BYTES

 Information is power.
 But for a long time people did not know how to store information and knowledge which could
be easily accessible.
 Convergence of information and communication technology has created ways to address these
challenges.
 Today even when we are on the move, we can access information from anywhere, any time.
 In the last two centuries, mobility has been redefined in both physical and virtual objects are
now mobile.
 Mobility of physical object relate to movement of matters, whereas movements of virtual
objects relate to movements of bits and bytes.
 The foundation of mobility of information was laid by Joseph Henry (1797-1878) who
invented the electric motor and techniques for distant communication.
 In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell laid the foundation of telephone by making the first voice call
over wire.
 On October 4, 1957 the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic) launched the Sputnik.
 It was the first artificial earth satellite launched from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan,
demonstrated the technological superiority of USSR.
 In response to this US formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the
Department of Defense(DoD).
 The mandate for ARPA was to establish the US as a leader in science and technology.

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  ARPS funded different research projects to help conduct research in computer networks laid
the foundation of packet switched data networks.
 The important packet switched networks in US and Europe are TCP/IP and X.25
 TCP/IP was driven by education and defense in the US whereas X.25 was driven by European
telecommunication industry and governments.
 With the evolution of computers and packet switched networks, movements of bits and bytes
progressed to a new state of maturity.

THE CONVERGENCE LEADING TO ICT:

 The first step towards the convergence between telecommunication and IT happened in 1965
when AT&T used computers to do the switching in an electronic switching system(ESS).
 The World Wide Web (WWW) was started by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 as a text processing
software, brought these two faculties of technology together and establish Internet as a powerful
media.
 The internet meets four primary needs of the society
 Communication
 Knowledge sharing
 Commerce
 Entertainment
 This convergence is called Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
 ICT will address the need to access data, information and knowledge from anywhere , anytime.

WIRELESS THE BEGINNING

 In 1947 researchers in AT&T Bell Labs conceived the idea of cellular phones.
 They realized that by using small service areas or cells they can reuse the frequency.
 This in turn can enhance the traffic capacity of mobile phones.
 AT&T requested the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to allocate a large number
of radio-spectrum frequencies so that widespread mobile telephone services would become
feasible.
 FCC is a government agency in the US that regulates the usage and licensing of frequency
bands, every country has its regulatory agencies like FCC.
 In India the regulatory authority is Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

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EVOLUTION OF WIRELESS NETWORKS:

 The first wireless network was commissioned in Germany in 1958 is called A-Netz and uses
analog technology at 160MHz.
 Only outgoing calls were possible in this network.
 This system evolved into B-Netz operating at the same 160MHz, was possible to receive an
incoming call from a fixed telephone network, provided that location of the mobile station was
known.
 In April 1973, Martin Cooper of Motorola invented the first mobile phone handset.
 In 1977 AT&T and Bell Labs constructed a prototype of a public cellular network.
 In 1982 the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) formed a study group
called the Groupe Special Mobile(GSM) to develop a standard for the pan-European mobile
system.
 In 1989 , GSM responsibility was transferred to the European Telecommunication Standards
Institute(ETSI) and GSM became a technical committee within ETSI.
 In 1990 Phase I of the GSM specification were published.
 GSM has become popular outside Europe, therefore to give a global flavour, GSM was
renamed as “Global System for Mobile Communications”.

EVOLUTION OF WIRELESS DATA:

 Voice Signals only

1G  Analogue Cellular Phones
 NMT, AMPS

 Voice & Data Signals

2G  Digital Fidelity Cellular Phones
 GSM, CDMA, TDMA

 Enhanced 2G
2.5G  Higher Data Rates
 GPRS,EDGE

 Voice , Data & Video Signals

3G  Video Telephony / Internet Surfing
 3G, W-CDMA, UMTS

 Enhanced 3G/Interoperability
3 Protocol
4G  High speed & IP-based
 4G, Mobile IP
MOBILE COMPUTINNG
 Mobile Computing is a technology that allows transmission of data, voice and video via a
computer or any other wireless enabled device without having to be connected to a fixed
physical link.
 Mobile computing is used in different contexts with different names.
 The most common names are
 Anywhere, Anytime Information
 Virtual Home Environment
 Nomadic Computing
 Pervasive Computing
 Ubiquitous Computing
 Global Service Portability
 Wearable Computers

MOBILE COMPUTING FUNCTIONS:

 Mobile computing can be defined as a computing environment over physical mobility.

 The user of the mobile computing environment will be able to access data, information or
logical objects from any device in any network while on move.
 A computing environment is defined as mobile if it supports one or more of these characteristics:
 User mobility: User should be able to move from one physical location to
another location and use same service.
 Network mobility: User should be able to move from one network to another
network and use same service.
 Device mobility: User should be able to move from one device to another and
use same service.
 Session mobility: A user session should be able to move from one user-agent
environment to another.
 Service mobility: User should be able to move from one service to another.
 Host mobility: The user should be either a client or server.
 The mobile computing functions can be logically divided into following major segments
 User with device: The user device, this could be fixed device like desktop
computer in office or a portable device like mobile phone. E.g Laptop
Computers, Desktop Computers, Fixed Telephones, Mobile Phones, Digital TV

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 with set top box, palmtop computers, pocket PCs, two way pagers, handheld
terminals etc.
 Network: Whenever a user is mobile, he will be using different networks at
different places at different time eg GSM, CDMA, iMode, Ethernet, Wireless
LAN, and Bluetooth etc.
 Gateways: This is required to interface different transport bearers. These
gateways convert one specific transport bearer to another transport bearer.
 Example: From a fixed phone (with voice interface) we access a
service by pressing different keys on the telephone.
 These keys generate DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency) signals.
 These analog signals are converted into digital data by Interactive
Voice Response (IVR) gateway to interface with a computer
application.
 Other Examples will be WAP Gateway, SMS Gateway etc.
 MiddleWare: This is more of a function rather than a separate visible node. In the
present context middleware handles the presentation and rendering of the
context on a particular device. It will also handle the security and
personalization for different users.
 Content: This is the domain where the origin server and content is .
 This could be an application, system or even an aggregation of systems.
 The content can be mass market, personal or corporate content.
 Origin Server will have some means to accessing the database and the
storage devices.

MOBILE COMPUTING FUNCTIONS

APPLICATION SERVER
ORIGIN
DEVICE ADAPTATION DATASTORE
SERVER
FRAMEWORK

MIDDLEWARE FRAMEWORK
USER WITH NETWORKS CONTENT
DEVICE AND
GATEWAYS 5
DIALOGUE CONTROL
 In any communication there are two types of user dialogues.
 long session-oriented transactions and
 short transaction.
 Going through a monolithic document page by page can be considered as a session-oriented
transaction.
 Going to a particular page directly through an index can be considered as a short transaction.
 Selection of the transaction mode will depend on the type of device we use.
 A session may be helpful in case of services offered through computers with large screens and
mouse.
 For devices with limited input/ output like SMS for instance, short transactions may be desired.
 Let us consider an example of bank balance enquiry over the Internet.
 In case of Internet banking through desktop computer, the user has to go through the following
minimum dialogues:
1.Enter the URL of the bank site.
2.Enter the account number/password and Login into the application.
3.Select the balance enquiry dialogue and see the balance.
4.Logout from the internet banking.
 The dialogue above is an example of session-oriented transaction.
 Using short transaction, the same objective can be met through one single dialogue.

NETWORKS

 Mobile computing will use different types of networks.

 These can be fixed telephone networks, GSM, GPRS, ATM(Asynchronous Transfer
Mode),Frame Relay, ISDN(Integrated Service Digital Network), CDMA , CDPD(Cellular
Digital Packet Data), DSL(Digital Subscriber Loop), Dial-up, WiFi(Wireless Fidelity),
802.11,Bluetooth, Ethernet, Broadband, etc.

WIRELINE NETWORKS:

 This is a network, which is designed over wire or tangible conductors.

 This network is called fixedline or wireline network.
 Fixed telephone networks over copper and fiber-optic, Broadband networks over Digital
Subscriber Line(DSL) or cable is a part of this wireline networks.

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 Wireline networks are generally public networks and cover wide areas.
 When we connect to Internet Service Providers(ISP), its generally a wireline network.
 The Internet backbone is a wireline network as well.

WIRELESS NETWORKS:

 Mobile networks are called wireless network.

 These include wireless networks used by radio taxis, one-way and two-way pager, cellular
phones.
 Examples will be PCS (Personal Cellular System), AMPS(Advanced Mobile Phone System),
GSM, CDMA, DoCoMo, GPRS, etc.
 WiLL (Wireless in Local Loop)networks using different types of technologies are part of
wireless networks as well.
 In a wireless network other than the radio interface, rest of the network is wireline and is
generally called the PLMN (Public Land Mobile Network).

Ad Hoc NETWORKS:

 "Ad Hoc" is actually a Latin phrase that means "for this purpose."

 It is often used to describe solutions that are developed on-the-fly for a specific purpose.

 In computer networking, an ad hoc network refers to a network connection established for a

single session and does not require a router or a wireless base station.

 For example, if you need to transfer a file to your friend's laptop, you might create an ad hoc
network between your computer and his laptop to transfer the file.

 This may be done using an Ethernet crossover cable, or the computers' wireless cards to
communicate with each other.

 If you need to share files with more than one computer, you could set up a mutli-hop ad hoc
network, which can transfer data over multiple nodes.

 Basically, an ad hoc network is a temporary network connection created for a specific purpose
(such as transferring data from one computer to another).

 If the network is set up for a longer period of time, it is just a plain old local area network
(LAN).

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BEARERS:

 For different type of networks, there are different types of transport bearers.
 These can be TCP/IP , HTTP, protocols or dial-up connection.
 For GSM it could be SMS, USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) or WAP.
 For mobile or fixed phone, it will be Voice.

MIDDLEWARE AND GATEWAYS

 Any software layered between a user application and operating system can be termed as
middleware.
 Middleware examples are
 communication middleware,
 object oriented middleware,
 message oriented middleware,
 transaction processing middleware,
 database middleware,
 behavior management middleware,
 RPC middleware etc.
 There are some middleware components like behavior management middleware, which can
be a layer between the client device and the application.
 In mobile computing context we need different types of middleware components and gateways
at different layers of the architecture (Figure 1).

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  These are:

1. Communication middleware

2. Transaction processing middleware

3. Behavior management middleware

4. Communication gateways.

COMMUNICATION MIDDLEWARE:

 The application will communicate with different nodes and services through different
communication middleware.

 Different connectors for different services will fall in this category.

 Examples could be TN3270 for IBM mainframe services, or Javamail connector for IMAP or
POP3 services

TRANSACTION PROCESSING MIDDLEWARE:

 In many cases a service will offer session oriented dialogue (SoD).

 For a session we need to maintain a state over the stateless Internet is done through an
application server.

 The user may be using a device, which demands a short transaction whereas the service at
the backend offers a SoD.

 In such cases a separate middleware component will be required to convert a SoD to a short
transaction.

 Management of the Web components will be handled by this middleware as well.

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT MIDDLEWARE:

 For different devices we need different types of rendering.

 We can have applications, which are developed specially for different types of rendering.

 For example, we can have one application for Web, another for WAP, and a different one for
SMS.

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  On the contrary, we may choose to have a middleware, which will manage entire device
specific rendering at the run time.

 This middleware will identify the device properly and handle all the behavior related stuff
independent of the application.

 The system may be required to have some context awareness.

COMMUNICATION GATEWAYS:

 Between the device and the middleware there will be network of networks.

 Gateways are deployed when there are different transport bearers or networks with dissimilar
protocols.

 For example, we need an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) gateway to interface voice with a
computer, or an WAP gateway to access internet over a mobile phone.

 (Figure 1) depicts a schematic diagram of services in a mobile computing environment where

services from enterprise to a vending machine can be used from different devices.

APPLICATION AND SERVICES

 There are six basic categories

 Personal (wallet, diary, etc)
 Perishable (news, sports, stock quotes, etc)
 Transaction oriented (bank transactions, mobile shopping, etc)
 Location specific (restaurant guide, map services, etc)
 Corporate (ERP, inventory, business alerts, etc)
 Entertainment (fun, games, social networking etc)
 Here are some examples
 NEWS: This is a very big basket of applications having different types of news.
 News could be political, current affair, breaking news, business news, sports
news, community news etc.
 YOUTH: This is a very high growth market with different applications to suit the style
and lifestyle of the youth.
 These are primarily messaging based application like person-to-person
messaging, chat, forums, dating etc.
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 WEATHER: These are different types of applications and services where mobile
computing can make a difference.
 If we look at very closely when a person is on a vacation and driving from
one city to another, access to weather information can sometimes save lives.
 CORPORATE APLLICATION: Standard corporate information is one of the most
desirable information set for mobile workers.
 This will include corporate mail, address book, appointments, MIS
applications, corporate Intranet, etc
 SALES FORCE AUTOMATION: This group will offer many applications.
 This will cater the large population of sales personnel.
 Applications will include sales order booking, inventory enquiry, shipment
tracking, logistics related applications etc.
 These applications will be very effective over wireless devices.
 m-BROKER: Getting correct and timely information related to different stocks is very
important.
 Also online trading of stocks while on move is quite critical for certain
lifestyle.
 m-BANKING & TELEBANKING: We need to access our banks for different
transactions.
 If telebanking can be made ubiquitous, it shall help everybody.
 Many banks in India are offering banking over mobile phones using SMS.
 m-SHOPPING: It will help to do different types of shopping using mobile devices like
Palmtop, PocketPC, mobile phone , etc.
 Buying a drink from a vending machine at an airport using a mobile phone
may be very handy especially when you do not have change.
 MICROPAYMENT BASED APPLICATIONS: Micropayments are these final
transactions where the amount of money involved in a transaction is not very high.
 Micropayments using mobile phones can help rural people to do business in a
much effective way.
 INTERACTIVE GAMES: Many mobile network operators have standard offering
different types of contest and interactive games to be played using mobile phone.
 EXPERTS ON CALL : Application system for experts, where experts use this while
they are mobile to schedule their time and business

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  GPS BASED SYSTEMS: Applications related to location tracking come under this
category.
 e-Governance: These applications are very important to bridge the digital divide.
 The Bhoomi project in Karnataka government has computerized two crore
land records of 67lakh farmers living in 30,000 village in the state.
 Many such projects in the Government can be made electronic, resulting into
better and faster access to information managed by the government.
 VIRTUAL LABORATORIES: There are many labs and knowledge repositories
around the world.
 These types of applications make the facility of these labs available across the
boundary of culture and countries.
 COMMUNITY FORUMS: There are different social and community meetings.
 On making them electronic, it may help increase the involvement of more
people to participate in community developments.
 JB FACILITATOR: These could be either proactive alerts or information related to
jobs.
 DOWNLOADS: Different types of downloads starting from ringing tone to pictures are
part of this family.

DEVELOPING MOBILE COMPUTER APPLICATIONS

 Any portal system today supports user mobility.

 If I have an Internet mail account like G-mail, Yahoo-mail, I can access my mail from
anywhere.
 I need a desktop or laptop computer to access my mailbox.
 I may not be able to access the same mail through some other device like a fixed phone.
 There are a number of factors that make mobile computing different from desktop computing.
 As a result of mobility, the attributes associated with devices , networks, and users are
constantly changing.
 These changes imply that the context and behaviour of applications need to be adapted to suit
the current environment.
 Context and behaviour adaption are required to provide a service that is tailored to the users
present situation.
 There are several ways in which context and behaviour can be adapted.

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  One way is to build applications without any context or behaviour awareness.
 Context and behaviour adaption will be handled by a behaviour management middleware at
runtime.
 Another option is to build different applications specific to different context and behaviour
patterns.
 Complexities involve in making an existing application mobile versus developing a new
mobile system will be different.
 For a new application it is possible to embed the behaviour with the application.
 However for a long-life system or a legacy application the content behaviour adaptation will
need to be done externally.

NEW MOBILE APPLICATIONS:

 Lets us assume that in a bank, some new applications need to be build for e-commerce.
 The bank wants to offer banking through Voice (telephone) and Web (Internet).
 Assuming that the bank already has a computerized system in place, the bank will develop two
new applications.
 One will handle the telephone interface through Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and the
other through Web.
 If the bank decides to offer SMS and WAP, they will develop two new applications to support
SMS and WAP interfaces respectively.
 To protect the investment and quick adaptation, the bank may decide to use transaction
processing middleware and RPC middleware.
 All these are possible only if it is a fresh applications development.

MAKING LEGACY APPLICATION MOBILE:

 We define an application as legacy if it has one or more of the following characteristics:

 It has moved into the sustenance phase in the software development lifecycle.
 It cannot be modified. This could be due to unavailability of the original
development platforms, unavailability of original source code or unavailability of
expertise to make the necessary changes.
 It is a product and package software where enterprise does not have any control.
This could be due to high cost of ownership for the new upgrade or the vendor
does not have any plan to support the new requirement.

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SECURITY IN MOBILE COMPUTING:
 Mobile computing has its fair share of security concerns as any other technology.
 Due to its nomadic nature, it's not easy to monitor the proper usage.
 Users might have different intentions on how to utilize this privilege.
 Improper and unethical practices such as hacking, industrial espionage, pirating, online fraud
and malicious destruction are some but few of the problems experienced by mobile computing.
 Another big problem plaguing mobile computing is credential verification.
 As other users share username and passwords, it poses as a major threat to security.
 This being a very sensitive issue, most companies are very reluctant to implement mobile
computing to the dangers of misrepresentation.
 The problem of identity theft is very difficult to contain or eradicate.
 Issues with unauthorized access to data and information by hackers, is also an enormous
problem.
 Outsiders gain access to steal vital data from companies, which is a major hindrance in rolling
out mobile computing services.
 No company wants to lay open their secrets to hackers and other intruders, who will in turn sell
the valuable information to their competitors.
 It's also important to take the necessary precautions to minimize these threats from taking place.
Some of those measures include −
 Hiring qualified personnel.
 Installing security hardware and software.
 Educating the users on proper mobile computing ethics.
 Auditing and developing sound, effective policies to govern mobile
computing.
 Enforcing proper access rights and permissions.

STANDARDS- WHY IS IT NECESSARY:

 Standards are document agreements containing technical specifications as rules guidelines or
definitions of characteristics.
 Standards ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for defined & agreed
purpose.
 A standard begins as a technical contribution, supported by a number of interested parties
 Standards are available for experts to challenge , examine and validate without standards
interoperability of goods and services will not be possible.
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  The opposite of standard is proprietary.
 Proprietary system for similar technologies are seen as technical barriers to trade and
competition.
 Today economies increasingly encourages diverse sources of supply and provide opportunities
for expanding markets.
 There are some fundamental differences between how US and Europe adapt technology.
 In the US market force and time to market drive the technology.
 In Europe standards drive the adaptation of technology.
 This is one of the reasons US has more proprietary software compared to Europe.

WHO MAKES THE STANDARDS?

 There are many institutes that generate and provide standards across the world.
 There are standard bodies at the regional, country as well as international level.
 Standard bodies are formed by the governments, professional institutes or industry
consortiums.
 There is a standard body under the Govt of India which is called Bureau of Indian Standard or
simply BIS.
 A standard process include the following steps:
Consensus on a proposed standard by a group or “consensus body” that includes
representatives from materially affected and interested parties.
Board-based public review and comments on draft standards.
Consideration of and response to the comments submitted by voting members of the
relevant consensus body and by public review commenters.
Incorporation of approved changes in a draft standard.
Right to appeal by any participant who believes that due process principles were not
sufficiently respected during the standards development in accordance with the ANSI
accredited procedures of the standards developer.

Standards bodies:
 Groups that are a government accredited organization and immune to prosecution for collusion
(as long as they obey their rules).
 They have an open, formal process for membership, require their membership to share relevant
patents on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

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ISO (International Organization for Standardization):

 ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national

standards bodies.
 ISO is a nongovernmental organization that comprises standards bodies from more than 160
countries, with one standards body representing each member country.
 The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for example, represents the United
States.Member organizations collaborate in the development and promotion of international
standards for technology, scientific testing processes, working conditions, societal issues and
more.
 ISO and its members then sell documents detailing these standards.
 Some of the most popular ISO standards for information technology include:
 Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
 ISO 27001
 ISO 17799
 ISO 20000
 ISO 31000
 ISO 12207
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force):
 Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF) is the standard-making body for Internet and related
technologies.
 The Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF, is an open, international community
comprised of participants who work to make the Internet work as smoothly as possible.
 They are directly responsible for all the different protocols that help make the Internet a reality.
 The IETF is much like a think tank, collaborating and communicating mainly through means of
an email mailing list.
 The actual technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups.
 The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority(IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment
of a unique IP address.
 Standards defined by IETF are called Request For Comment or RFC.
ETSI(European Telecommunications Standards Institute):

 The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is a non-profit organization that

establishes telecommunications standards for Europe.

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  ETSI guidelines are voluntary and almost always comply with standards produced by
international bodies.
 ETSI initiatives touch on the following areas: aeronautical radio, API, ATM, electromagnetic
compatibility, electronic signature, Generic Addressing and Transport protocol, maritime radio,
service provider access, Telecommunications Management Network (TMN), TETRA, VoIP,
and xDSL.
OMA (Open Mobile Alliance):
 The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is a a mobile specification resource organization.
 The OMA facilitates mobile service interoperability worldwide while growing the mobile
market through the rapid adoption of mobile data, entertainment and communication standards.
 OMA membership includes approximately 200 organizations, including mobile operators,
device/network suppliers, IT organizations and content providers.
 A key OMA benefit is efficient resolution of issues related to mobile service interoperability.
 Solutions are based on open standards that deliver economic benefits.
 OMA's principles are derived from the Open Mobile Architecture Initiative (OMAI) and
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), as well as the Mobile Wireless Internet Forum (MWIF),
SyncMLInitiative, MMS Interoperability Group (MMS-IOP), Location Interoperability Forum
(LIF) and Mobile Gaming Interoperability Forum (MGIF).
ITU(International Telecommunication Union):
 ITU is an organization within the United Nations System.
 It was founded on the principle of cooperation between governments and the private sector.
 With a membership encompassing telecommunication policy makers and regulators, network
operators, equipment manufactures, hardware and software developers, regional standards-
making organizations and financing institutions, ITU’s activities, policies and strategic
direction are determined and shaped by the industry it serves.
 ITU has three sectors of the Union are Radio communication(ITU-R), Telecommunication
Standardization(ITU-T) and Telecommunication Development(ITU-D).
IEEE Standards Association(IEEE-SA):
 IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) is an organization that produces standards, which are
developed and used internationally.
 IEEE-SA focuses considerable resources on the long-respected full consensus standards
process carried out by the standards committees and IEEE societies, the IEEE-SA pioneers
new and innovative programs to increase the value of IEEE standards to members, industry
and the global society.
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EIA(Electronic Industries Alliance):
 The Electronic Industries Alliance(EIA) is a national trade organization within the US that
includes the full spectrum of its electronics industry.
 The Alliance is a partnership of electronic and high-tech associations and companies whose
mission is promoting the market development and competitiveness of the US high-tech industry
through domestic and international policy efforts.
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium):
 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies to lead the web to its
full potential.
 W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication and collective understanding.
 By promoting interoperability and encouraging an open forum for discussion, W3C is commited
to leading the technical evolution of the Web.
3GPP:
 3GPP is to produce globally applicable technical specifications and technical reports for 3rd
Generation Mobile System based on evolved GSM core networks and radio access technologies
that they support (i.e) Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) both Frequency Division
Duplex(FDD) and Time Division Duplex(TDD)modes.
ANSI(American National Standards Institute):
 ANSI is the national standard organization in the United States.
 In many instances the US standards are taken forward to ISO and IEC(International
Electrotechnical Commission), where they are adapted in whole or in part as international
standards.
UMTS(Universal Mobile Telecommunications System):
 UMTS represents an evolution in terms of services and data speeds from todays second
generation mobile networks like GSM.
 As a key member of the global family of third generation(3G) mobile technologies identified by
the ITU, UMTS is the natural evolutionary choice for operators of GSM networks.
BLUETOOTH:
 Bluetooth wireless technology is a worldwide specification for a small-form factor, low cost
radio solution that provides links between mobile computers, mobile phones, other portable
handheld devices and connectivity to the Internet.

18
CDG(CDMA Development Group):
 The CDMA Development Group(CDG) is an international consortium of companies who have
joined together to lead the adoption and evolution of CDMA(Code Division Multiple Access)
wireless system around the world.
PKCS(Public-Key Cryptography Standards):
 The Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) are specifications produced by RSA
Laboratories in cooperation with secure systems developers worldwide for the purpose of
accelerating the deployment of public-key cryptography.
PAM Forum(Presence and Availability Management Forum):
 In the world of ubiquitous computing knowing the position and context of a device is very
I,portant.
 PAM Forum is an independent consortium with a goal to accelerate the commercial deployment
of targeted presence and availability applications and services that respect users preferences,
permisisions and privacy.
PARLAY Group:
 The Parlay Group is a multi-vendor consortium formed to develop open, technology-
independent application programming interfaces(API’s).
 Parlay integrates intelligent network(IN) services with IT applications via a secure, measured
and billable interface.
DECT(Digital Enhanced Cordless communicaTions):
 DECT is an ITSI standard for portable phones.
 DECT is known in ITU as a 3G system and is commonly referred to as IMT-FT(IMT Frequency
Time).
WiMAX Forum:
 WiMAX Forum is Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access Forum dedicated to
certifying the operations of interconnecting devices.
 It aims to provide wireless data over long distances in different forms ranging from point-to-
point links to full scale mobile access networks for wireless broadband communication.
TTA(Telecommunications Technology Association):
 TTA is an IT standards organization catering to development of new standards based in Korea.
 It provides one-stop services for comprehensive IT standards.
WiFi:
 Wi-Fi owns trademark to Wi-Fi alliance.

19
  It was previously known as Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance.
 It is focused on interoperability and compatibility of Wireless LAN devices and committed to
continuous improvements in design and better user experience.
ARIB(Association of Radio Industries and Business):
 ARIB is an institution based in Japan, dedicated to efficient use of radio spectrum and its
implications in business.
CCSA(China Communication Standards Association):
 CCSA is an attempt of Chinese Ministry of IT to reform telecommunications industry and
market
 It aims to become a nationally unified standards organization in China.
DLNA(Digital Living Network Alliance):
 DLNA ia s cross industry association of consumer electronics, computing industry and mobile
device companies.
 The objective of DLNA is to establish a conglomeration of wired and wireless interoperable
network of personal computers , consumer electronics and mobile devices in the home and
outside in order to enable a seamless environment for sharing digital media content.
History of computers and internet
 In 1822, Charles Babbage conceptualized and began developing the Difference Engine,
considered to be the first automatic computing machine.
 Then after almost a decade, Charles Babbage proposed the first general mechanical computer,
the Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine contained an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), basic
flow control, and integrated memory concept and is the first general-purpose computer.
 In 1946, ENIAC- Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer was the first electronic
general-purpose computer. It was the first large-scale computer to run at electronic speed
without being slowed by any mechanical parts. And it was invented by J.Presper Eckert and
John W. Mauchly.
 Douglas Engelbart invented the first computer mouse.
 First computer with RAM – MIT introduces the Whirlwind machine, a revolutionary computer
that was the first digital computer with magnetic core RAM and real-time graphics.
 The first minicomputer – In 1960 Digital Equipment Corporation released its first of many
PDP computers the PDP-1.
 The first laptop – First Laptop was introduced in 1981 by Adom Osborne and the company
“EPSON” manufactured first Laptop.
20
  The following table categorises generations of computers and other important factors associated
with the generations.

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Subject
generation generation generation generation generation

Period 1940-1956 1956-1963 1964-1971 1971-present present & beyond

ULSI (Ultra
Vacuum Integrated chips Microprocessor Large Scale
Circuitry Transistor
tube (IC) (VLSI) Integration)
technology
Magnetic core
Memory memory, LSI and
20 KB 128KB 1MB ULSI
Capacity VLSI. High
Capacity
300 IPS 1MIPS
Processing Faster than 3rd
instructions 300 IPS (1 million inst. Very fast
Speed generation
Per sec. Per sec.)
Assembly
language & early
All the Higher
Programmi high-level Higher level
Machine, level
ng languages C,C++ languages,C,C++,
Language languages,,Neural
Language (FORTRAN, Java
networks,
COBOL,
ALGOL)
IBM 1401, IBM
Example Artificial
UNIVAC, 7094, CDC IBM 360 series, Pentium
of Intelligence,
EDVAC 3600,D UNIVAC 1900 series series,Multimedia,
computers Robotics
1108

HISTORY OF INTERNET:
 February 7, 1958 was the day Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy signed Department of Defense
Directive 5105.15.

 His signature launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), now known as the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

 The creation of the agency is an important moment in science history because it led to the
creation of the internet we recognize today.

21
 The Cold War was in full swing in the 1950s, and the US was worried about the Soviet
Union’s growing scientific prowess.

 Because of Sputnik 1, launched in 1957, the US military was concerned about the Soviet Union
attacking from space and destroying the US long-distance communications network.

 The existing national defense network relied on telephone lines and wires that were susceptible
to damage.

 In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider, a scientist from ARPA and MIT, suggested connecting computers to
keep a communications network active in the US in the event of a nuclear attack.

 This network came to be known as the ARPA Network, or ARPAnet.

 Packet switching made data transmission possible in 1965, and by 1969, military
contractor Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) developed an early form of routing devices
known as interface message processors (IMPs), which revolutionized data transmission.

22
 The Stanford University Network was the first local area network connecting distant
workstations.

 In 1981, the NSF expanded ARPAnet to national computer science researchers when it funded
the Computer Science Network (CSNET).

 BBN assumed CSNET operation management in 1984.

 ARPAnet adopted the transmission control protocol (TCP) in1983 and separated out the military
network (MILnet), assigning a subset for public research.

 Launched formally as the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) in 1985, engineers
designed it to connect university computer science departments iacross the US.

 "ARPAnet's transition to the open networking protocols TCP and IP in 1983 accelerated the
already burgeoning spread of internetworking technology," says Stephen Wolff, principal
scientist with Internet2. "

 When NSF's fledgling NSFNET adopted the same protocols, ARPAnet technology spread
rapidly not only to university campuses across the USA to support the higher education
community, but also to emergent Internet Service Providers to support commerce and industry."

 The NSFNET eventually became a linked resource for the five supercomputing centers across
the US, connecting researchers to regional networks, and then on to nearly 200 subsidiary
networks.

23
 NSFNET took on the role of internet backbone across the US, with ARPAnet gradually phased
out in 1990.

 1989 saw a major step forward in internet communications.

 Tim Berners-Lee of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) created the
hypertext transfer protocol (http), a standardization that gave diverse computer platforms the
ability to access the same internet sites.

 For this reason, Berners-Lee is widely regarded as the father of the world wide web (www).

 The Mosaic web browser, created in 1993 at the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was a key development
that emerged from the NSFNET.

 Mosaic was the first to show images in line with text, and it offered many other graphical user
interface norms we’ve come to expect today (like the browser’s URL address bar and
back/forward/reload options for viewing webpages.)

 Eventually the NSFNET modified its acceptable use policy for commercial use, and by 1995, it
was decommissioned.

 Soon, the internet provider model created network access points that allowed the for-profit,
commercial side of the internet to be developed.

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ARCHITECTURE OF MOBILE COMPUTING:
 The network centric mobile computing architecture uses three-tier architecture as shown below

 Presentation Tiers , Application Tiers and Data Tiers.

 The first layer in User Interface or Presentation Tier
 Deals with user facing device handling and rendering.
 Includes a user system interface where user services reside.
 Second tier is the Process Management or Application Tier.
 Here business logic and rules are executed.
 Capable of accommodating hundreds of users.
 Control transactions.
 Asynchronous queuing to ensure reliable completion of transactions.
 Third tier is Database Management or Data Tier
 For database access and design
 Provides increased performance, flexibility, maintainability, reusability and
scalability, which hiding the complexity of distributed processing from the user.
THREE-TIER ARCHITECTURE:
 To have universal access, the server is connected to a ubiquitous network like internet.
25
  To have access with network, an application called web browser is required such as internet
explorer, Mozilla etc
 Three layers are
 Presentation Tier (Tier 1)
 Application Tier (Tier 2)
 Data Tire (Tier 3)
PRESENTATION TIER ( TIER 1):
 This is the user facing system in the first tier.
 This is the layer of agents applications and system.
 These applications run on the client device and offer all the user interface.
 This tier is responsible for presenting the information to the end user.
 Humans generally use visual and audio means to receive information from the machine.
 Information is given to the system from keyboard(computer, laptop, cell phones), pen (tablet,
palmtop) etc.
 This layer includes web browsers , WAP browsers and customized client programs.
APPLICATION TIER (TIER 2):
 The application tier or middle tier is the “engine” of a ubiquitous application.
 It performs the business logic of processing user input, obtaining data and making decisions.
 It includes the technologies like CGIs, Java, JSP, .NET services, PHP etc deployed in products
such as Apache, WebSphere, WebLogic, iPlanet, Pramati, JBOSS or ZEND.
 Application Tier is presentation and database independent.
 A middleware framework is defined as a layer of software, which sits in the middle between the
operating system and the user facing software.
 Middleware can also be considered as a software gateway connecting two independent open
objects.
 We can group middleware into the following major categories:
 Message-oriented Middleware(MOM) : It is a middleware farework that loosely
different applications through asynchronous exchange of messages.
 A MOM works over a networked environment without having to know what
platform or processor the other application is resident on.
 MOM is generally asynchronous, peer-to-peer and works in publish/subscribe
fashion.
 MOM is most appropriate for event-driven applications.

26
  Example : Message Queue from IBM known as MQ Series.
 Transaction Processing(TP) Middleware : It provides tools and an environment for
developing transaction based distributed applications.
 An ideal TP system will be able to input data into the system at the point of
information source and the output of the system is delivered at the point of
information sink.
 In an ideal TP system , the device for input and output can potentially be
different.
 Also the output can be an unsolicited message for a device.
Client

Client
Client Client
Processing Routines

Client Transaction Application

Processing Server
Middleware
Client

Client

Client
Client

Client

TRANSACTION PROCESSING MIDDLEWARE

 MODEL VIEW CONTROLLER(MVC): Java uses the MVC architecture

pattern which is an example of transaction processing system.
 It splits an application into separate layers viz presentation , domain
logic and data access.
 Model is the domain-specific representation of the information on
which the application operates.
 View is responsible for rendering the model into a form suitable for
interaction and understood by the user typically a user interface
element.
 Controller manages processes and responds to events typically user
actions and may invoke changes on the model.
27
  Communication Middleware : It is used to connect one application to another through
some communication middleware, like connecting one application to another through
telnet.
 These type of middleware are quite useful in the telecommunication world.
 A mediation server automates the telnet protocol to communicate with these
nodes in the network.
 Another example could be to integrate legacy applications through
proprietary communication protocol like TN5250 or TN3270.
 Distributed Object and Components : An example of distributed objects and
components is CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture).
 CORBA is an open distributed object computing infrastructure being
standardized by the Object Management Group.
 CORBA simplifies many common network programming tasks used in a net-
centric application environment.
 CORBA is a vendor-independent infrastructure.
 Transcoding Middleware : It is used to transcode one format of data to another to suit
the need of the client.
 For example , if we want to access a web site through a mobile phone
supporting WAP, we need to transcode the HTML page so that the mobile
phone can access it.
 Technically transcoding is used for content adaptation to fit the need of the
device.
 Content adaptation is also required to meet the network bandwidth needs.
 For example , some frames in a video clip need to be dropped from a low
bandwidth network.
 Content adaptation used to be done through proprietary protocols.
 To allow interoperability , IETF has accepted the Internet Content Adaptation
Protocol (ICAP).
 ICAP is now standardized and described in RFC3507.
Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP):
 ICAP is a protocol aimed at providing simple object-based content vectoring for HTTP services.
 ICAP is a lightweight protocol to do transcoding on HTTP messages.
 Typical data flow in an ICAP environment is depicted below

28
 1. A user agent makes a request to an ICAP-capable surrogate(ICAP client) for an object
on an origin server.
2. The surrogate sends the request to the ICAP server.
3. The ICAP server executes the ICAP resource’s service on the request and send the
possibly modified request, or a response to the request back to the ICAP client.
4. The surrogate sends the request, possibly different from the original client’s request
to the origin server.
5. The origin server responds to the request.
6. The surrogate sends the reply (from either the ICAP of the origin server) to the client.

4
1

5
6
Client ICAP Client (Surrogate) Origin Server

2 3

ICAP Resource on ICAP server

Typical Data Flow in a ICAP Environment

DATA (TIER-3):
 The Data Tier is used to store data needed by the application and acts as a repository for both
temporary and permanent data.
 The data can be stored in any form of database or datastore.
 These can range from sophisticated relational database, legacy hierarchical database, to even
simple text files.

29
  The data can also be stored in XML format for interoperability with other systems and
datasources.
 A legacy application can also be considered as a data source or a document through a
communication middleware.
 Database Middleware : It allows the business logic to be independent and transparent of
the database technology and the database vendor.
 It runs between the application program and the database.
 These are sometimes called database connectors as well.
 Examples of such middleware will be ODBC , JDBC , etc.
 Using these middleware the application will be able to access
 SyncML: SyncML protocol is an emerging standard for synchronization of data access
from different nodes.
 The greatest benefit of this model is that resources are managed at a centralized
level.
 All the popular mobile devices like handheld computers , mobile phones,
pagers and laptops work in an occasionally connected mode , some data are
cache in the local device and accessed frequently.
Design considerations for mobile computing:
 The mobile computing environment needs to be context-independent as well as context-
sensitive.
 Context information is the information related to the surrounding environment of an actor in that
environment.
 The term “context” means all the information that helps determine the state of an object ( or
actor).
 In mobile computing environment , context data is captured so that decision can be made about
how to adapt content or behaviour to suit this context.
 There are many ways in which content and behaviour can be adapted.
 Following are some examples :
 Content with context awareness : Build each application with context awareness.
 There are different services for different client context(devices).
 Content switch on context: Another way is to provide intelligence for the adaptation of
content within the service.
 This adaptation happens transparent to the client.

30
  In this case the service is the same for Internet, PDA and WAP.
 Content transcoding on context: Another way is to provide an underlying middleware
platform that performs the adaptation of the content based on the context and behaviour
of the device.
 This adaptation happens transparent to the client and the application.
 The middleware platform is intelligent enough to identify the context either from
the HTTP or additional customized parameters.
 In this case the service may be in html or XML, the mddleware platform
transcodes the code from html(or XML) to html and wml on the fly.
Client Context Manager:
 Client context manager is needed to gather and maintain information pertaining to the client
device, user, network, and the environment surrounding each mobile device.
 All these information will be provided by a set of Awareness Modules.
 Awareness modules are sensors of various kinds.
 Almost any information available at the time of an interaction can be seen as context
information. Some examples are :
Identity
Spatial information
Temporal information
Environmental information
Social situation
Resources that are nearby
Availability of resources
Physiological measurements
Activity
Schedules and agendas
 W3C had proposed a standard for context information.
 This standard is called Composite Capabilities/Preference Profile (CC/PP) for describing device
capabilities and user preferences.

31
 Higher Level Specification , Applications

Accessibility, Internationalization , Device Independence, QA

C Web Services
Security C P (Architecture SOAP,
Interaction / 3 Choreography,WSDL)
HTML
(XHTML,SVG P P
SMIL,CSS,XFor P
(DSig,Enc,
ms,VoiceXML,SS
KMS)
ML,Timed Text
Multimodality,…) Sematic Web
(RDF,OWL,…)

HTTP

URL XML
(Namespaces, XML Schmas,XSLT,XPath,XLink,XML,Base,XQuery,DOM,…)

HTTP1.1

URI

INITIAL
WEB Tomorrow’s Web

The Content Architecture with Respect to Mobile Computing

 Composite Capabilities / Preference Profiles (CC/PP):

 Composite capabilities / Preference Profiles (CC/PP) is a proposed W3C standards
for describing device capabilities and user preferences.
 Special attention has been paid to wireless devices such as mobile phones and PDAs.
 CC/PP is designed in such a way that an origin server or proxy can perform some
sort of content to device matching.

32
  CC/PP is designed to suit an adaptation algorithm.
 The sequence of steps in the general case would look something like the following
 Device sends serialized profile model with request for content.
 Origin server receives serialized RDF profile and converts it into an in-
memory model.
 The profile for the request document is retrieved and an in-memory model is
created.
 The device profile model is matched against the document profile model.
 A suitable representation of the document is chosen. At this stage the
document to be returned can be chosen from a number of different version
of the same document or it can be dynamically generated.
 Document is returned to device and presented.

HTTP request with Profile

HTTP response with Adapter content

THE SIMPLEST USE OF CC/PP

CONTEXT AWARE SYSTEMS:

 The role of context manager is to maintain information pertaining to location , mobile devices,
networks, users, the environment around each mobile device and any other context information
deemed relevant.
 Following are the description of these information and relevance in the mobile computing
environment:
 Location information
 Device information
 Network information
 User information
 Environment information

33
MOBILE COMPUTING THROUGH INTERNET:
 Ubiquitous network can be divided into three functional arears namely core, edge and access.
 Out of the three, the core and the edge are likely to be Internet and internet.
 By internet we define a network which is a combination of various networks and interworks
with one another, whereas Internet with uppercase I is the Internet we know.
 For mobile and ubiquitous computing the access network will be both wirless and wired
networks.
 In the case of wireless access network, it could range from infrared, Bluetooth, WiFi,
GSM,GPRS,IS-95,CDMA,etc
 For wired it is expected to be some kind of LAN.
 In the case of wired network the bandwidth is higher, stable and the device is likely to be a
workstation with a large memory and display.
 Also such devices are not constrained by the limited battery power.
 When the user-facing device is a wired device, the complexity and challenges are far less.
 However some of the constraints for wireless can still apply in the case of wired devices and
networks.
 Therefore from the mobile computing client point of view consideration for a wired device
will be the same as a wireless client.

Making existing applications mobile enabled:

 There are many applications that are now being used within the intranet or the corporate network.
 These application need to be made ubiquitous and mobile computing capable.
 There are many ways by which this can be achieved:
 Enhance existing application : Take the current application. Enhance the application
to support mobile computing.
 Rent an application from an ASP: There are many organizations who develop
ubiquitous application and rent the same at a fee.
 Write a new application: Develop a new application to meet the new business
requirement of the mobile computing.
 Buy a packaged solution: There are many companies who are offering packaged
solutions for various business areas starting from manufacturing to sales and
marketing. Buy and install one.
 Bridge the gap through middleware: Use different middleware techniques to
facelift and mobile computing enable the existing application.
34
  One of these techniques, or any combinations can be used to make an application ubiquitous.
 If the enterprise has a source code for the application, enhancement of the existing application
may be a choice.
 Writing a new application by taking care of all the aspects described previously may also be a
possibility.
 Buying a package or renting a solution from an ASP can also be preferred path for some business
situations.
 Many of these applications might have been developed in-house, but may not be in a position to
be enhanced.
 Some might have been purchased as products.
 A product developed by outside agency cannot be enhanced or changed as desired.
 In many of such situations, mobile computing enabling can be done through middleware.
 The combination of communication middleware and application middleware can be used to
make an application mobile.
 By using a transcoding middleware, the application can be wireless-enabled and used through
WAP, J2ME or even SMS (Short Message Service).
 Through middleware, some additional security features can be added.

REFERENCE:
 MOBILE COMPUTING , ASHOKE K TALUKDER, ROOPA R YAVAGAL, TMH, 2005

ASSIGNMENT TOPIC:
 ARCHITECTURE OF MOBILE COMPUTING

QUESTION PAPER:
ONE MARKS:
1.Mobile Phone uses _______.
a) Half Duplex b) Full Duplex c) Both (a) and (b) d) None
2.Which of the following is not a property for Autonomous Computing?
a) Self Protecting b) Self Upgradable c) Self Healing d) Network Information
3.Which of the following is a technology for Modulation ?
a) TDMA b) CDMA c) FDMA d) UMTS
4. ______ protocol is used for communication to access the Internet.

35
a) TCP/IP b) FTP c) SMTP d) UDP
5. _______ is the process of computation in mobile computing.
a) mobile b) system c) networks d) none
6. Mobile Computing is also called as _________.
a) pervasive computing b) distributed computing c) both (a) and (b) d) none
FIVE MARKS:
1. Explain the variants of mobile computing. (NOV 2017)
2. Explain wired network and wireless network. (NOV 2017)
3. Discuss on design consideration for mobile computing. (NOV 2017, APR 2019)
4. Explain Mobility of Bits and Bytes. (APR 2019)
5. Explain any five mobile computing applications. (NOV 2019)
6. What are context aware systems? What are the details that include a context aware system?
(NOV 2019)
EIGHT MARKS:
1. List out and Explain the standard bodies used in mobile computing. (NOV 2017)
2. Explain the three tier architecture of mobile computing. (NOV 2017)
3. How to develop mobile computer application? (APR 2019)
4. Explain the architecture of mobile computing. (APR 2019)
5. List the pros and cons of standards. Name and explain the standard committee responsible for 3G.
(NOV 2019)
6. Explain the various types of network used in mobile computing. (NOV 2019)

36