Using capability profiles for appliance aggregation

We describe how several existing standards try to address specific use cases for appliance aggregation. These standards all rely on devices being able to describe their capabilities to other devices. In order to do this, each standard defines its own idiosyncratic profile structure and profile vocabulary. Furthermore applications using this information often need to perform standard tasks such as selection, generation or adaptation based on this information. The problems of devising profile vocabularies, profile structures and matching and selection algorithms are already being explored in the adaptable Web delivery project in HP Labs. We discuss the relevance of this work to appliance aggregation and highlights steps that can be taken to resolve the current proliferation of standards.