Resource discovery in modern computing environments

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to characterise a number of current and future computing environments and summarises their resource discovery requirements. It then seeks to analyse, with respect to the requirements of each environment, several established service discovery protocols and some newer protocols that are still in the research domain. In addition, the key features of a new resource discovery protocol that has been developed to operate with heterogeneous computing environments are described.

Design/methodology/approach

A comprehensive literature survey was undertaken, highlighting the shortcomings of existing resource discovery protocols with respect to large pervasive computing environments. Given the identified gaps in existing protocols, an alternative protocol is suggested.

Findings

The main findings of this paper relate to the identified shortcomings of existing resource discovery protocols. It was also found that a hybrid resource discovery protocol capable of spanning dynamic, mobile computing environments and more stable ones was able to overcome many of the challenges presented by large‐scale pervasive computing environments.

Originality/value

This paper presents comprehensive literature survey of the state‐of‐the‐art in resource discovery protocols, pointing out some of the problems that are not solved. The paper describes the design of an alternative protocol, and presents an evaluation of it. The pervasive computing research community can draw upon the survey and evaluation to guide the design of future resource discovery protocols for the increasingly dynamic world in which we live.

Citation

Robinson, R., Indulska, J. and McFadden, T. (2007), "Resource discovery in modern computing environments", International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 4-29. https://doi.org/10.1108/17427370710841909