Adaptive Middleware for Uniform Access to Legacy Systems for Mobile Clients

Abstract

The trends of mobile accessibility are bringing new challenges to the viability of computerized systems that can't support mobile clients. Taking in instead of ignoring the ever-increasing number of mobile users is important and urgent to save legacy properties and maintain business prosperity. And a uniform access to heterogeneous end hosts is most desirable for computationally challenged mobile devices. To address the above two issues, this paper proposes a mobile adaptive data accessing middleware (MADAM). It uses a non-intrusive way to mobilize legacy systems and offer a consistent accessing interface to mobile users. MADAM provides the adaptability of heterogeneity for both sides. On the client side, a context structure is used to differentiate clients' circumstances. On the server side, a service registration mechanism allows components customized for specific servers to be easily added or removed. MADAM achieves good extensibility and performance by adopting a semi service oriented architecture. Experiments with a prototype implementation show the validity of MADAM