Metadata modeling in a global computing environment

Emerging computational paradigms such as global and ubiquitous computing require some rethinking and innovative research ideas in many computer science areas. In this work, we aim at studying a mobile computing scenario from the database perspective. Given a global computing environment in which data is kept in a number of small-scale, data-charged, mobile devices that use, e.g., wireless networks, for communication, we want to assess the overall data scenario. We use an example to abstract the requirements to such a computing environment and to outline the various existing types of data. Included here are some metadata proposals related to the actual data stored in the device (content data) as well as to the data necessary to the functioning of the device within the computing environment (profile data). The metadata proposals are based on well-known languages and tools such as XML, RDF, UML, and ontologies.