We present the design and implementation of an end-to-end architecture for Internet host mobility using dynamic updates to the Domain Name System (DNS) to track host location. Existing TCP connections are retained using secure and efficient connection migration, enabling established connections to seamlessly negotiate a change in endpoint IP addresses without the need for a third party. Our architecture is secure---name updates are effected via the secure DNS update protocol, while TCP connection migration uses a novel set of Migrate options---and provides a pure end-system alternative to routing-based approaches such as Mobile IP. Mobile IP was

This paper shows how to quickly move the state of a run-ning computer across a network, including the state in its disks, memory, CPU registers, and I/O devices. We call this state a capsule. Capsule state is hardware state, so it

We have created Zap, a novel system for transparent migration of legacy and networked applications. Zap provides a thin virtualization layer on top of the operating system that introduces pods, which are groups of processes that are provided a consistent, virtualized view of the system. This decouples processes in pods from dependencies to the host operating system and other processes on the system. By integrating Zap virtualization with a checkpoint-restart mechanism, Zap can migrate a pod of processes as a unit among machines running independent operating systems without leaving behind any residual state after migration. We have implemented a Zap prototype in Linux that supports transparent migration of unmodified applications without any kernel modifications. We demonstrate that our Linux Zap prototype can provide general-purpose process migration functionality with low overhead. Our experimental results for migrating pods used for running a standard user’s X windows desktop computing environment and for running an Apache web server show that these kinds of pods can be migrated with subsecond checkpoint and restart latencies. 1

Locating mobile objects in a worldwide system requires a scalable location service. An object can be a telephone or a notebook computer, but also a software or data object, such as a file or an electronic document. Our service strictly separates an object's name from the addresses where it can be contacted. This is done by introducing a location-independent object handle. An object's name is bound to its unique object handle, which, in turn, is mapped to the addresses where the object can be contacted. To locate an object, we need only its object handle. We present a scalable location service based on a worldwide distributed search tree that adapts dynamically to an object's migration pattern to optimize lookups and updates.

This article summarizes the results of the BARWAN project, which focused on enabling truly useful mobile networking across an extremely wide variety of real-world networks and mobile devices. We present the overall architecture, summarize key results, and discuss four broad lessons learned along the way. The architecture enables seamless roaming in a single logical overlay network composed of many heterogeneous (mostly wireless) physical networks, and provides significantly better TCP performance for these networks. It also provides complex scalable and highly available services to enable powerful capabilities across a very wide range of mobile devices, and mechanisms for automated discovery and configuration of localized services. Four broad themes arose from the project: 1) the power of dynamic adaptation as a generic solution to heterogeneity, 2) the importance of cross-layer information, such as the exploitation of TCP semantics in the link layer, 3) the use of agents in the infrastructure to enable new abilities and to hide new problems from legacy servers and protocol stacks, and 4) the importance of soft state for such agents for simplicity, ease of fault recovery, and scalability.

distributed computing services that essentially abstract the underlying network services to a monolithic “black box. ” In a mobile operating environment, the fundamental assumption of middleware abstracting a unified distributed service for all types of applications operating over a static network infrastructure is no longer valid. In particular, mobile applications are not able to leverage the benefits of adaptive computing to optimize its computation based on current contextual situations. In this paper, we introduce the Mobile Platform for Actively Deployable Service (MobiPADS) system. MobiPADS is designed to support context-aware processing by providing an executing platform to enable active service deployment and reconfiguration of the service composition in response to environments of varying contexts. Unlike most mobile middleware, MobiPADS supports dynamic adaptation at both the middleware and application layers to provide flexible configuration of resources to optimize the operations of mobile applications. Within the MobiPADS system, services (known as mobilets) are configured as chained service objects to provide augmented services to the underlying mobile applications so as to alleviate the adverse conditions of a wireless environment. Index Terms—Middleware, mobile applications, mobile computing support services, mobile environments. 1

Despite the popularity of mobile computing platforms, appropriate system support for mobile operation is lacking in the Internet. This paper argues this is not for lack of deployment incentives, but because a comprehensive system architecture that efficiently addresses the needs of mobile applications does not exist. We identify five fundamental issues raised by mobility---location, preservation of communication, disconnection handling, hibernation, and reconnection---and suggest design guidelines for any system that attempts to address them. In particular, we argue that a good system architecture should (i) eliminate the dependence of higher protocol layers upon lower-layer identifiers; (ii) avoid prescribing a particular naming scheme; (iii) handle unexpected network disconnections in a graceful way, exposing occurrences to applications; and (iv) provide these services at the mobile nodes themselves. Motivated by these principles, we propose a session-oriented, end-to-end architecture called Migrate, and briefly examine the set of services it should provide.

Ubiquitous access to sophisticated internet services from diverse end devices across heterogeneous networks requires the injection of additional functionality into the network to handle protocol conversion, data transcoding, and in general bridge disparate network portions. Several researchers have proposed infrastructures for injecting such functionality; however, many challenges remain before these can be widely deployed. CANS is an application-level infrastructure for injecting application-specific components into the network that focuses on three such challenges: (a) efficient and dynamic composition of individual components; (b) distributed adaptation of injected components in response to system conditions; and (c) support for legacy applications and services. The CANS network view comprises applications, stateful services, and data paths built from mobile soft-state objects called drivers. Both services and data paths can be dynamically created and reconfigured: a planning and event propagation model assists in distributed adaptation, and a flexible type-based composition model dictates how new services and drivers are integrated with existing components. Legacy components plug into CANS using an interception layer that virtualizes network bindings and a delegation model. This paper describes the CANS architecture, and a case study involving a shrink-wrapped client application in a dynamically changing network environment where CANS improves overall user experience. 1

this paper, we use the term mobile object to collectively refer to any component - implemented in hardware, software, or a combination thereof- that is capable of changing locations. We assume that a mobile object can be distributed or replicated across multiple locations, meaning that there may be several locations where the object resides at the same time. This can be the case, for example, with a whiteboard application shared between a number of mobile users. The existence of (worldwide) mobile objects introduces a location problem: The need for a scalable facility that maintains a binding (i.e., a mapping) between an object's permanent name and its current address(es). Such facilities are normally offered by wide-area naming systems such as the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) [9], DEC's Global Name Service (GNS) [10], and the X.500 Directory Ser- vice [11]

Recent advances in wireless networking technologies and the growing success of mobile computing devices, such as laptop computers, third generation mobile phones, personal digital assistants, watches and the like, are enabling new classes of applications that present challenging problems to designers. Mobile devices face temporary loss of network connectivity when they move; they are likely to have scarce resources, such as low battery power, slow CPU speed and little memory; they are required to react to frequent and unannounced changes in the environment, such as high variability of network bandwidth, and in the resources availability. To support designers building mobile applications, research in the field of middleware systems has proliferated. Middleware aims at facilitating communication and coordination of distributed components, concealing complexity raised by mobility from application engineers as much as possible. In this survey, we examine characteristics of mobile distributed systems and distinguish them from their fixed counterpart.