Cooperative Data Management and Its Application to Mobile Computing

Mobile computing and workgroup computing are emerging technologies which have so far been treated independently. Current approaches to support cooperative work neglect the special characteristics of mobile environments like limited bandwidth or temporary disconnection. On the other hand, approaches to support disconnected operation rely on the assumption that the degree of data-sharing is low which is obviously not appropriate for cooperative work. In this paper, we utilize the COACT cooperative transaction model to provide support for parallel activities in mobile environments. We present a system architecture that is able to cope with the special characteristics of mobile environments and a formal framework for the consistent information exchange between mobile users. The paper shows how the COACT history merge algorithm reduces conflicts by exploiting operation semantics and offering consistent sequences of operations. We believe that our new approach is a viable solution to the growing demand for cooperation in mobile environments.