Using SOC in Development of Context-Aware Systems

Abstract

The drive for user-centric systems in combination with an emergence of wireless networking and increasing computing capabilities of mobile devices propel the development of Context-Aware (CA) systems. Moreover, nowadays, for the development of computer systems, Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm became popular as it advocates use of services to support the development of rapid, low-cost, interoperable, evolvable, and distributed applications. Being a system development paradigm, the SOC can provide fundamental building blocks for developing ubiquitous CA systems. However, context-awareness itself is a relatively new and scattered research area. Due to the complex challenges encountered in a development of CA systems (such as context acquisition or multifaceted nature of context), current research initiatives address only some specific problems, abstracting from others. Nevertheless, a holistic view of context-awareness encompasses numerous relevant cross-cutting research and development aspects. This holistic view is presented by means of a domain model of context-awareness proposed in this chapter. We reveal state-of-the-art of the individual research (sub-) domains and we analyze how they fit in the proposed domain model and how they map onto the widely used layered model for CA systems development. SOC could be effectively used to develop services catering to each (sub-) domain and SOC fundamentals such as interoperability and service composition could be further exploited to develop a complete CA system. This is shown in a case study of the Amigo project. Therefore, the contribution of this chapter is multifold. It provides a domain view of context-awareness to the newcomers in this field and highlights opportunities for SOC practitioners in the context-awareness domain. Moreover, it also provides a holistic view of context-awareness to the existing researchers, and helps practitioners by means of the Amigo project case study to apply the SOC concepts and the context-awareness domain model in the development of CA systems.