The user profile for the virtual home environment

This article addresses user data issues for virtual home environment (VHE) management among heterogeneous networks and service applications. User data represent all information describing the network and personalized service environments related to a roaming user. After analyzing user data accessed by identified VHE functions and roles, a modular and flexible information model called a user profile has been designed. Various architecture scenarios are then addressed for the implementation of this user profile. Among them, the best one fits the needs and constraints due to existing network architectures, and eventually provides a global federating solution for VHE management.