XWARE—A customizable interoperability framework for pervasive computing systems

Abstract

Middleware support for Pervasive Computing has been extensively researched in the past. Different approaches for, e.g., discovery, communication, or interaction, have been explored and successfully tested in different lab environments. Although this works well in lab environments, where one middleware manages all resources, this will not suffice in real-world deployments, where more than one system software is present and services as well as other resources are only accessible by those.In this paper, we present XWARE, an interoperability framework that allows to integrate discovery and interaction of different middleware platforms. The flexible design allows to configure and extend the interoperability framework in order to add new platforms and tailor it for the use in different domains. Furthermore, XWARE instances can communicate with each other enabling interoperability in smart environments as well as in smart peer groups. The feasibility of our approach is discussed and evaluated based on the integration of five different platforms.