Mobile Server: An Efficient Mobile Computing Platform

Based on Mobile Agent

Wen-Bin Hu,
Bo Meng
College of computer science and technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430070 china
hwb77129@sohu.com
Mengbo@whu.edu.cn
Abstract
A mobile agent computing platform based on
J2ME technology and Jini system architecture,
Mobile Server was presented. The platform was
established on extended Jini system architecture, and
was embedded software kernel to support computing
style of mobile agent. In order to overcome the
shortage of traditional database access technology in
mobile computing enviornment, a centralized
database and a distributed heterogeneous database
access technology based on mobile agent was
proposed. Amied at the usable resource restraints in
mobile computing environment, an enviornment
apperceiving middleware was designed to allocate
and manage the resources. The application results
show that the effect in saving computing time by
using this platform is notable.
Keywords:
mobile computing, mobile agent,
middleware, J2ME, resource restraints

. INTRODUCTION
Mobile computing represented the
inevitable direction of network development,
which made it true that people used computer
resources according to their wills [1]. Despite
the exponential growth of CPU speed, modern
computers cannot cope with the growing
demand for computational resources that occur
in areas such as bio-informatics [2][3].
Computer models are becoming more refined
and often show an exponential time complexity.
Moreover, the amount of data to be processed is
growing rapidly. At the same time, there is a
huge amount of unused computer power
available on the desks of people, especially after
office hours. The SETI@home project has
demonstrated convincingly the scalability and
feasibility of mobile computing with spare CPU
cycles. At the same time Gnutella, KaZaa and
Morpheus have generated ample interest in
peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and have shown
their utility. Combining these two approaches is
an obvious step. Mobile agents seem the ideal
tools for such unification, because (1) they can
react flexibly on the availability of resources,

0-7803-9335-X/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

and (2) they allow for new computational tasks

to be created without the need for installing new
software on multiple hosts.
The characteristic of mobile computing
environment is the ceaseless changing of
resources, and changes in a limitation. So in the
environment with restrictive resource, the
usable resources should be correctly used, and
when the quality of usable resources drops or
the usable resources become to be unusable, the
system should be fit for the changes. Moreover,
mobile computing users maybe transfer from
one network to another in the mobile process,
which means to support to operation of network
transferring. The characteristic of alterable
bandwidth is very important to mobile
computing users in order to resolve the
influence of restrictively factor relative to
dynamic network transferring, so the stronger
adaptability of mobile computing system is the
key technology to resolve mobile problems.
In another way, there are many data
accessing problems in the mobile computing,
the mobile computing environment is narrow
communicating bandwidth and big delay. To
desktop computer, mobile terminal is weakly
computing ability and limited power, while the
traditional data accessing style is aimed at
desktop computer, which requires terminal with
higher computing intelligent (equipment more
relative software), larger bandwidth and lower
delay, so it needs to find a new data accessing
method to fit the mobile computing environment.
A mobile agent computing platform based
on J2ME technology and Jini system
architecture, Mobile Server was presented,
aimed at the problems of limited resource and
data accessing in mobile computing system. The
platform was established on extended Jini
system architecture, and was embedded
software kernel to support computing style of
mobile agent. In order to overcome the shortage
of traditional database access technology in
mobile computing enviornment, a centralized
database and a distributed heterogeneous

1339

Authorized licensed use limited to: Hogskolan Vast. Downloaded on February 2, 2010 at 12:11 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

database access technology based on mobile

agent was proposed. Aimed at the usable
resource restraints in mobile computing
environment, an enviornment apperceiving
middleware was designed to allocate and
manage the resources.
The remainder of this paper is organized as
follows: Sect.2 outlines the system architecture
of Mobile Server; Sect. 3 describes data
transferring technology of our platform; Sect. 4
presents the designing of the middleware of our
platform, Sect.5 presents an application. Finally,
Sect.6 presents our conclusions,
. ARCHITECUTRE OF MOBILE
SERVER
The architecture of Mobile Server is
showed in figure 1, which is combined by tow
kinds of component, one is MS Engine and HM
Engine that run on the mobile computing server;
the other is Service Engine, at least exit one on
the J2ME terminal equipment [4].
Mobile Agent integrative database accessing
technology

S e rv ic e E n g in e

E n v iro nm en t A p p erc eivin g

M id dle w are
H M E n g in e
M S E n g in e

H u m a n In terfac e
F ailu re M o d u le

N a v ig a tio n M o d u le

S e cu rity M o d u le

C o m m u n ic a tio n M o d u le
S e rv ice E n g in e

Fig.1. The architecture of Mobile Server

A HM Engine
HM Engine is communicating interface
between users and J2ME terminal equipment.
Users use local browser to configure J2ME
terminal equipment, state watching and
harmony controlling by HM Engine, which is
realized by Applet and Servlet technologies.
B MS Engine
MS Engine includes the below six modules:
1) Human Interface
It is used to watch, configure the Mobile
Server interface.

0-7803-9335-X/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

2) Failure Module
It is used to control and watch the terminal
equipment network, deal with network
abnormity, equipment trouble and service
declining and so on.
3) Navigation Module
It is used to assure the relative network
location and realize the connection of
communication.
4) Security Module
It is used to protect host, network resource,
code object and mobile code object.
5) Communication Module
It is used to realize the communication
among terminal equipments.
6) Harmony Module
It is used to harmony the resource among
mobile computing equipments
C Service Engine
Service Engine is the center of mobile
computing platform, which is used to analyze
and find user service. Service Engine adopts
Lookup service mechanism of Jini architecture
to realize searching service, and support
hiberarchy searching.
. A CENTRALIZED DATABASE
ACCESSING TECHNOLOGY BASED ON
MOBILE AGENT
In order to realize centralized database
accessing technology based on Mobile Agent in
mobile computing, mobile terminal equipment
(MH) needs to provide mobile Agent with
database accessing function. Database server
needs to provide running environment of
Mobile Agent and database connection interface
and driver program. But it doesnt need to
provide the support of Mobile Agent to finish
Farther Agent (FA) and Home Agent (HA) of
Mobile IP.
We extend and modify some classes of
IBM Aglets, and realize three components:
Accessing Create Interface (ACI); Accessing
Mobile Agent (AMA) and Accessing Execute
Environment. ACI provides a user interface of
input database accessing request, which
transfers the accessing request to AMA in bite
code, and return the executing result to user.
AMA is used by ACI to execute the database
accessing request of ACI in the remote SQL
database server, accepts results and return to

1340

Authorized licensed use limited to: Hogskolan Vast. Downloaded on February 2, 2010 at 12:11 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

ACI and AEE to run in the Tahiti Server

Environment of SQL database server. Tahiti
Server Environment assigns database source and
driver program of local computer, assistants to
connect database source, and execute database
accessing request [5].
Fromone network to the other
MH

Return result

Tahitiz+AEE

HA
Return result
(Block)

FA
Return result

SQLServer

Internet

AMAwith SQLsentence

Database Application transfers

ACI with SQLsentence

In the above steps, database access and

other tasks of MH asynchronous parallel
executes, which means when the AMA executes
the database-accessing request, MH can
executes other tasks, includes transferring from
one network to other network and not to wait
the results returning. This centralized database
accessing technology not only allows the
transferring of database accessing function, but
also the transferring of host (such as MH). MH
doesnt need to equipment database connecting
driver program, which lets SQL database server
to execute database connection and database
accessing, and realizes the localization of
database accessing. The AMA can be used
several times, so the database accessing of MH
becomes more flexible, convenient and efficient.
The MH becomes more portable, so this
database accessing technology fit the database
accessing in mobile computing environment.
. DESIGN OF ENVIRONMENT
APPERCEIVING MIDDLEWARE

Fig.2. Centralized database accessing technology based on

Mobile Agent

The accessing steps of centralize database

in mobile computing environments are show in
below (just as figure 2):
1) When user database applications on MH
need to access remote database, the databaseaccessing request (that is SQL sentence) is input
to ACI, ACI can contain one or more relative
database-accessing requests.
2) ACI transfers one Mobile Agent (AMA),
AMA transfers the database-accessing request
to SQL database server according to a given
route strategy.
3) AMA arrives SQL database server,
Tahiti service program accept AEE and tell the
usable driver program and connectable database
source to SQL database source, AMA connects
the database according to the appointed resource
and with the help of AEE to execute the
database-accessing requests.
4) After the database-accessing requests
are executed, AMA sends the results to HA of
MH, HA searches the location registration
information of MH and gets the FA address of
the network, and sends the results to FA from
the door of HA and FA. FA returns the results
to MH again.
5) After MH gets the results, the results is
returned to ACI, and ACI returns the results to
database application to finish the database
accessing process.

0-7803-9335-X/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

Environment apperceiving middleware

(EAM) manages and configures the mobile
computing equipments and resources with
Harmony Module of MS Engine. J2ME mobile
equipment is registered by EAM, which is
convenient to accept and manage information of
high-level events. The high-level events include:
original language events of operation system
and events of user software. EAM inputs
information to this original language to
compose the three components of Mobile server
before the high-level events transfers to
application system. The three components are:
Channel Manager (CM), Event Producing
Manager (EPM) and Event Objects Manager
(EOM) [6].
A CM
Channel is the key of event transferring
structure, which bonds the event producer and
customer, realizes event transferring strategy
and save environment state information with a
serial of events. Ordinarily, a channel connects
a component of mobile environment.
Channel saves the current state of mobile
environment by saving log file of an Event
Object. It saves the latest state of Event Object
until the new Event Object arrives. When the
first Handle registers the channel the first time,
the Event Object will transfer the latest state of
current environment of channel to Handles.

1341

Authorized licensed use limited to: Hogskolan Vast. Downloaded on February 2, 2010 at 12:11 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

The common interface of channel and

strategy classes is illustrate in figure 3 as below:
Class Channel{
Class Strategy {
Strategy strategy;
Handler * List;
Event * State MAX}
void Deliver (Event *)
Channel (char * name);
virtual void Reset();
Channel (char * name, Strategy * s); NextHandler ();
.}
virtural void AddHandler()
}
Fig.3. The structural of Channel and Strategy classes

B EPM
Events are checked by EPM, EPM is
corresponding to entity Producer. One Producer
is a software module (relative to mobile
environment). In this EAM, it engenders Event
Objects by extending information, which means
when it checks an event, Producer will pack the
relative information into Event Object. This
Event Object will be transferred to one Channel
and transferred to the relative EAM application
system. The Producer and Handler classes are
illustrated in figure 4 as below.
Class Producer{
Channel * channel;
Producer (char * channel);
Void PostEvents (Event *);
.}
Class Handler{
Channel * channel;
Handler (char* channelname);
Void Body();
}
Fig.4. The structural of Producer and Handler classes

C EOM
Though different events are relative to
different information. A kind of information is
public to one or more events. The organization
of Event Object may to be an extend type
arrangement. We define the basic event object,
which is aimed to the given event demands and
function. Each Event Object is the child class of
root class.
The typical events in the mobile computing
application include: Connections Event,
Services Event and so on. The typical
information of Connections Event includes: 1)
network gate ID; 2) connection is UP or DOWN.
The package information of Service Event is the
usable of network service, includes such as
printer, SMTP and NUTP. The common
interface of EOM is showed in figure 5.
Class Event {
Event();
Virtural size_tMarshal (void *, size_t);
Virtural Event * UnMarshal (void * size t);
Virtural void Handle();
}

. EXPERIMENTS
The experiments conducted on WebitAgent
[4] platform and Mobile Server platform. The
running time of a task is showed in table 1.
Tab.1. Time used for two platforms
Number
20,000,000
40,000,000
60,000,000
80,000,000
100,000,000

Time used (s)

WebitAgent
MobileServer
152
155
410
405
731
655
1103
870
1518
1215

-0.65
1.46
10.52
21.48
19.96

From the above table, the effect of time

saving is obvious to Mobile Server, because of
the new database accessing technology and the
design of environment apperceiving middleware.
. CONCLUSIONS
The Mobile Server model presented in this
paper connected the J2ME equipment with
Internet, which made the equipment on the
network be watched and controlled at any time
and anywhere by any authorized person. Mobile
Server was established at extended JINI
technology, so the network embedded J2ME
equipment was not only flexible and dynamic,
but also the equipment has initiative ability with
the help of Mobile Agent. In another way, this
paper presented a centralized database accessing
technology and EAM to support mobile
computing platform. The experiment show the
project is viable and the effective of saving
computing time is remarkable.
REFERENCES

[1] Dong Won Jeong and Doo-Kwon Baik, AMC: An

Adaptive Mobile Computing Model for Dynamic
Resource Management in Distributed Computing
Environments remarkable, Springer-Verlag Berlin
Heidelberg, LNCS 2344, pp. 671-678, 2002
[2] Sung-Hoon Park. AN Efficient Election Protocol in
Mobile Computing Environment, Springer-Verlag,
Berlin Heidelberg, LNCS 2657, pp. 387-396, 2003
[3] Xi Wang, Xu Liu, Xiaoge Wang and Yu Chen. A
Middleware Based Mobile Scientific Computing
System- MobileLab , Springer-Verlag Berlin
Heidelberg, LNCS 3251, pp. 1013-1016, 2004.
[4] Wang Jiyong. An Embedded Mobile Computing
platform:WebitAgent System Model. Journal of
Northeastern University (Natural science), Vol 23,
No.5, pp. 421-424.2002.
[5] Xiong Yan. Database Access Technologies Based on
Mobile Agents in Mobile Computing Environments,
MINI-MICRO SYSTEM, Vol.23 No.10, pp.11651168, 2002.
[6] Li Dong. Research of Applications Solution Using
Middleware Technology in Mobile Computing,
MINI-MICOR SYTEM, Vol.21 No.11, pp.1201-1204,
2000.

Fig.5. The structural of Event class

0-7803-9335-X/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

Time gain (%)

1342

Authorized licensed use limited to: Hogskolan Vast. Downloaded on February 2, 2010 at 12:11 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.