Lisbon

id.pt Optimistic replication is a fundamental technique for sup-porting concurrent work practices in mobile environments. However, due to sudden and frequent transitions to weakly connected situations, user experience when accessing repli-cated data is poor and discourages users from using the repli-cation service. While most research on optimistic replication assumes weak connectivity as a fixed imposition of the envi-ronment, weak connectivity often results from a user option of disconnecting available connections in order to reduce bat-tery and/or monetary cost. This paper argues that such a choice can be considerably optimized if driven by the system, rather than the user, rely-ing on the accurate knowledge the system can have about the replicas it stores, along with the information about the avail-able connections and the corresponding costs. We introduce the notion of data-aware connectivity, where the system reg-ulates which available connections to enable, with the intent of (i) ensuring acceptable quality of accessed replicated data, (ii) at minimal connectivity cost. We propose a system for data-aware connectivity, which integrates well with existing operating systems and replicated data infra-structures. 1