Open Collections

Abstract

With the increasing proliferation of mobile computing devices comes the need for operating system software which supports applications running in the mobile environment. The computational environment of a mobile computer is typically more constrained than that of a stationary computer, having a less powerful CPU, less available memory, and being connected via a network with less available bandwidth and higher latency. Various software systems have been developed which attempt to compensate for these limitations; these may be characterised in terms of how much they hide the mobile environment from applications (mobile-transparency) and the degree to which they can dynamically locate application functions between the mobile machine and a stationary server in order to adapt to changes in the environment. The MobileJ system is one which supports mobile-transparent, dynamically partitioned applications for use in the mobile environment. By instrumenting Java class files (object code) and replacing all type references with those of proxy classes, the MobileJ system provides the basis for runtime control over placement of objects without requiring application programmers to change source code. MobileJ provides a mechanism to be used in the investigation of object placement policies for use in applications running in the mobile computing environment.