In this paper, the authors address some of the challenges of the current technologies in the area of component-based programming and automated software downloading. These challenges include: component updating at runtime of affected applications, adopting the "true-push" model in order to allow for silent software modification (e.g. for removing minor implementation errors), and finding a way to integrate these technologies and electronic commerce in software components. To respond to these challenges, the SOFA (SOFtware Appliances) architecture, the SOFA component model and its extension, DCUP (Dynamic Component UPdating), are introduced. SOFA and DCUP provide a small set of well scaling orthogonal abstractions which address three areas: the background for electronic commerce, the component model, and support for dynamic component updating in running applications. The updating granularity can scale anything from minor implementation changes to a major reconfiguration. In contrast with the usual belief that it is difficult to map abstractions supporting component based programming to concrete computer systems, the abstractions proposed by DCUP are very easy to map to the Java and CORBA programming environments.

Location-Aware applications for supporting the mobile user have proven significant relevance for future telecommunication and computing. Based on the state-of-the-art analysis and the business view, the paper evaluates the outcome of the labs and the requirements of commercial usage. A system architecture is proposed from the technical perspective. The required support of heterogeneous resources leads to the necessity of an adequate middleware platform. Merging data from different sources and constraints in the transmission and presentation capabilities of the mobile side require sophisticated media scaling and conversion capabilities. The envisaged service architecture leads finally to the discussion of the prototype developed on our Mobile Guide test-bed.

Location-Aware applications for supporting the mobile user as well as logistics of movable objects have proven significant relevance for future telecommunication and computing. Based on the state-of-the-art analysis, the paper evaluates the outcome of the labs and the requirements of commercial usage. A system architecture is proposed from the technical perspective for localisation, information, communication, and management. The required support of heterogeneous resources leads to the necessity of an adequate middleware platform. The Location-Aware Service and Application Platform provides modular, unified access to various services, which are commonly and overlappingly used by multiple applications. Service request trading assigns the appropriate in-house services or third-party providers to the requirements of the applications. Merging data from different sources and constraints in the transmission and presentation capabilities of the mobile side require sophisticated media scaling and conversion capabilities. The envisaged service architecture leads finally to the discussion of a number of prototype applications developed and being developed on our test-bed. 1.

The CAMOUFLAGE Project is a national german research initiative led by the Deutsche Telekom. It aims at the provision of a TINA conform distributed processing environment based on existing legacy telecommunication systems. The envisaged target architecture is a switched ATM network deploying B-ISDN. Using an integrative approach a mutual stimulation between the TINA technology and the BISDN technology is expected. The paper presents the overall design of the CAMOUFLAGE DPE, the CMA for the B-ISDN and gives a detailed description of the B-ISDN based transport network for operational interactions. A general mechanism for the introduction of different interoperability protocols (Open Communication Interface) to CORBA is proposed. The B-ISDN protocol GFP has been selected as the foundation for the implementation for such an interoperability protocol. It allows not only a fast inter-ORB communication, but can also - due to its different modes - be tailored to the actual nee...

This paper discusses how mobility can be incorporated into TINA services. Mobility in this context is the ability to transfer a session from one terminal to another without disrupting the service. The design, implementation and example of use of a "mobility-aware" TINA Distributed Processing Environment (DPE) is detailed in the paper. The DPE is built over commercial software products and offers two basic facilities from which TINA services can be built: life-cycle and stream facilities. Life-cycle facilities allow distributed objects to be deployed and managed transparently while stream facilities allow multimedia channels to be established among service components. Life-cycle facilities are implemented according to the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). Stream facilities are based on the Object Management Group's media streaming framework "Control and Management of Audio/Video Streams (A/V Streams)". Mobility in our DPE is implemented at the cluster level as ...