Project Overview

The aim of the project is to build a simulation environment that can be used to simulate a service oriented computing on a mobile ad-hoc network.

Adhoc wireless networks are un-tethered collection of mobile nodes, with no central administration that send packets using wireless interfaces. These networks are self-organizing and adaptive, and are formed on the fly without central authority.

Service oriented computing is a logical way of designing a software system to provide services to either end-user applications or other services distributed in a network, through published and discoverable interfaces.

The project consists of two main elements.

SOC Framework

SOC framework consists of a number of building blocks; each block plays a significant role in the overall architecture. There are five salient blocks - description, advertisement, discovery, invocation, and composition - in any SOC framework.

Service Description Block

The service description block describes a service in a comprehensive and unambiguous manner that both facilitate machines automation and easy rendition by humans. The syntax is clear and facilitates matching of services at semantic levels.

Services Advertisement Block

The services advertisement block makes provision for the announcement of services to a central repository known as the directory service or directly to individual hosts. Both the depth of the announcement (that is, its coverage area) and detailed information about the service included therein, that can assist a user make an informed decision, measures the efficacy of the advertisement.

Service Discovery Block

The service discovery block is the keystone element of a SOC framework with the responsibility of formulating requests, which are descriptions of the needs of users; matching of these requests to advertisements with flexible matching algorithms and finally providing the conduit for the exchange of data amongst services users and providers.

Service Invocation Block

The service invocation block transmits commands from users to providers and results in the reverse direction; maintains the communication links amongst users and providers and reroutes data during the failure of communication channels or exit gracefully.

Service Composition Block

The service composition block merges two or more services with minimum or no human intervention and producing a gestalt service.

Simulation Environment

This environment can be used to simulate a mobile ad-hoc network that consists of multiple devices with different capabilities that provide and use different services.