A framework for adaptive applications

The adaptive applications framework presented here aims at enabling hosts in a network to share objects such as applications or data. The framework consists of a set of components needed at each host in the network. They are the repository, the monitor, and the mobile agents. The repository acts as a database for storage of objects and object semantics. An adaptive application, which itself is an object, first tries to access an object from the local repository. If it is not found, the search is extended to the repositories of co-operating hosts by the use of mobile agents. An object or a proxy object is returned to the requester. The application can be executed on the local host or on the remote host depending on predefined network and host load conditions. The framework that has been prototyped will form a base for further work, which includes exploring the use of semantic modelling for pre-caching and intelligent download of resources.Godkänd; 2000; 20060921 (ysko