Decentralized broker for context management and distribution using unstructured P2P networks in a service oriented architecture
Igor Ladeira Pereira · Lume (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) · 2018
Context information is present in many application types nowadays. For instance, it may consist of the information or activity related to a user who is registered in a shopping website. With this, the website is able to suggest items based on previous purchases or even on the user country. Another example may correspond to data gathered by humidity sensors in a crop, providing an insight into irrigation problems. Context information is the basis for the interaction between users and computing systems and may comprise a significant amount of data. Thus, this demands the proposal of efficient mechanisms for distribution and management of information. This work proposes a decentralized platform for context management and distribution called Context Broker using unstructured peer-to-peer networks. The platform consists in a set of Brokers that act as context servers, providing storage and retrieval of data to consumers and providers. The design and implementation decisions were taken considering simplicity and performance goals. First, the theoretical foundation that substantiates the development of the platform will be presented. The main concepts related to context-aware systems will be indicated, as well as examples of related work. Next, a description and justification of the design decisions will be given, covering aspects such as the system architecture and the message protocol. Following that, implementation details will be presented and the experimental evaluation will be described. Finally, the results will be presented and discussed.