Persistent Servers + Ephemeral Clients = User Mobility
Alan Dearle · 1997
A large group of computer users are now mobile; they either make use of more than one computer or carry lap-top computers with them. User migration is often hindered by inadequate programming models and architectures. This paper describes an architecture which permits the user's environment to migrate with them. A corner-stone of this architecture is the ability of persistent Java systems to save and restore the state of active computations. This concept is extended to permit computations to be restored on different machines thus permitting a user's environment to migrate. The architecture also addresses the difficult issue of channel mobility between two migratory applications. It is therefore general enough to support arbitrary distributed mobile computations. 1 Introduction Many computer users make use of more than one computer, for example, it is common to have a computer at work and another at home. Sometimes within the workplace a user may use more than one computer,...