Discovery and Its Discontents: Discovery Protocols for Ubiquitous Computing

The trend toward ubiquitous computing and "information appliances" will lead to several orders of magnitude, increase the number of networked devices, and these devices will be small, mobile, and unadministered. To meet these goals, there is a need for new protocols to support automatic discovery and configuration of network devices and services, with little or no human intervention. In the past several years, a number of protocols have been proposed to meet this need, including Sun''s JINI, Microsoft''s Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), and academic projects, such as UC Berkeley''s Ninja. In this talk, I will survey the most important of these protocols, noting their strengths and weaknesses. The analysis will show that there is considerable overlap in the capabilities and a clear convergence on several technologies, especially the use of XML descriptions of capabilities and interfaces. I will also note several significant features missing from most or the protocols, including awareness of physical location and security. (Presentation to the Center for Excellence in Space Data and Information Science.)

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