Service-Oriented Architectures for Pervasive Computing

The vision of pervasive computing is to create and manage computational spaces where large numbers of heterogeneous devices collaborate transparently to serve the user tasks all the time, anywhere. The original utility of a computer is now changing from a stand-alone tool that runs software applications to an environmentaware, context-aware tool that can enhance the user experience by executing services and carrying out his/ her tasks in an efficient manner. However, the heterogeneity of devices and the user’s mobility are among the many issues that make developing pervasive computing applications a very challenging task. A solution to the programmability of pervasive spaces is adopting the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm. In the SOA model, device capabilities are exposed as software services thus providing the programmer with a convenient abstraction level that can help to deal with the dynamicity of pervasive spaces. In this chapter the authors review the state of the art in SOA-based pervasive computing, identify existing open problems, and contribute ideas for future research.