A P2P platform architecture for context-sensitive applications its implementation using Web services

Recently, mobile devices such as PDAs (personal digital assistants) and cellular phones are becoming popular. Furthermore, the emergence of new technologies such as wireless LANs, IP phones, and network-enabled appliances promote the increase of terminal devices connected to the Internet. In such an environment, a tremendous amount of ever-changing information is produced by the terminal devices. By utilizing it extensively, we are able to produce various context-sensitive applications. In this paper, we propose a P2P platform architecture which facilitates the development of context-sensitive applications. In the proposed architecture, we provide middleware functionalities between applications and a P2P overlay network, that properly collect and process context information. We also describe the implementation method employing Web services for the proposed P2P platform. Especially, the implementation detail of the service discovery function is described. We also describe the two basic functions, the timeout setting and the asynchronous processing function, which we implemented to cope with the randomness of the response arrivals.