Data management for supporting nomadic users based on LDAP and software agents

by Hooda, Amin M.

TodayTsroad workers increasingly demand computing and communications capability that is available from any place, in any fom, and at any time. Such network access prirnady needs to be independent of location and device, which identifies 'global mobility support' across wired and wireless networks, popularly referred to as PCS in North Amenca and as UMTS in Europe. In the computing world, the emergence of the ubiquitous information access is noted as Nomadic Cornputing. The two types of mobility: terminal and personal, essentially characterize it. The thesis presents application layer solution, referred to as Nomad's Persona1 Access Systenz (NPAS) that emulates 'personal mobility' in a virtual network, with the aim of supporting 'comrnunicationT needs of the mobile users. The thesis proposes a data mode1 that is required to provide personal mobility. The data mode1 allows specifying the communication and computing environment. i.e., resource (services) profile of the user both at home and visited sites. As part of data management scheme, software agents is leveraged to create dynamic &ta pertaining to a current resource (services) profile of a nomad at a visited location. The &ta management involves the use of iETF's Lightweight Directoty Access Rotocol (LDAP) and inter-site negotiation agent called Site Profle Agent. The inter-site negotiation protocol is built using Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML). NPAS aims to deliver messaging services as the final promise; however, messaging services are only discussed to elaborate the use of the proposed data model.