A middleware-based architecture to support transparent data access by mobile users in heterogeneous environments

Mobile computing is becoming more and more pervasive, liberating users from the confines of wired networks. At the same time, transparent access to heterogeneous, distributed information sources has become a reality in wired computing. Obviously, this kind of access is highly desirable for mobile users, too. However, current architectures for transparent information access do not take the specific needs of mobile users into account, while existing architectures for mobile computing do not support transparent access well. For the future growth of the usage of mobile computing, it is of utmost importance that, instead of individually-developed, isolated extensions to the existing architectures, the research community agrees on a strong, standardized middleware platform extending both existing mobile architectures and existing information access architectures to ensure mobile access in heterogeneous environments. In this paper, we propose such a platform.