Client mobility and fault tolerance in a distributed network data system

As wireless and ubiquitous computing become increasingly affordable and widespread, traditional client-server models for distributing data fail to offer the flexibility needed in mobile computing environments. Although systems have been proposed to address these concerns, most rely on changes to existing infrastructures. The article describes a server hierarchy that uses currently available resources which alleviate some of the common problems associated with data mining from mobile hosts. Although designed for retrieving stored status monitoring information and topology of cable television amplifier networks, the proposed system is general enough to be used for disseminating arbitrary data across a computer network. Client mobility and fault tolerance, if required, are handled through the use of object serialization and intermediate agents.