A Proxy-Based Mobile Computing Infrastructure

Proxies can be used as gateways between remote resources and mobile devices to deal with the challenges resulted from disconnections and the limited resources of mobile devices. This paper describes a proxy-based infrastructure that provides proxy services to support mobile device applications. Proxy services can be thought of as a library of functions where the functions execute on a proxy and serve as a bridge between client application on the mobile device and remote services. The infrastructure allows for a dynamic association of a proxy with a mobile device that takes into account the proximity between the mobile device and proxy and the mobility of the client mobile device. Furthermore, proxies are chosen dynamically and the services provided by a proxy are dynamically changing based on the requirements of the clients for a better resource utilization. Several experiments are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed infrastructure. The results suggest that the services offered by the proxy can be used for quick recovery after disconnections with only the minimal addition of overhead.