Odin: Context-Aware Middleware for Mobile Services

Abstract

Mobile devices such as smart phones are increasing permeating society. With strides in computational power, coupled with the ability to connect to other small devices, smart phones are able to host novel services. To address the repetitive problems associated with mobile service development, namely service reachability, scalability and availability, we have developed Odin, which is a middleware platform for mobile service provisioning. Beyond providing a provisioning solution, Odin conserves scarce resources such as network bandwidth and device power supply. However, Odin has previously lacked an ability to take into account operational context. In this paper, we present context-aware extensions to Odin that further optimise resource usage. Augmented with support for context types that include location, performance, power and network, Odin is able to propagate context information to applications and dynamic adapt the middleware’s behaviour. Novelty of the work lies in a solution whose device overhead is very low, and one that offers a coherent approach to context dissemination and adaptation. Based on quantitative evaluation, context-aware Odin’s low overhead is demonstrated along with significant gains in resource conservation.