Architecture for provision of context-aware web applications based on web services

Abstract

Mobile and pervasive computing is gaining significant importance in the latest years. Context-awareness constitutes an essential aspect - almost a requirement - of mobile services in these environments. In this paper, we propose an architecture that supports the development and provision of context-aware services. The described approach provides means for the context adaptation of software components exposed as web services independently of their specific implementation allowing for added flexibility concerning the adaptation itself or whether it is performed at all. As the service logic is clearly separated from the context adaptation, the same principle can be applied to composite web services. Specifically, we show that different services and context sources can be combined to provide a web application separating completely the application logic from the context adaptation. Context plugins loaded on runtime are responsible for invoking the right context sources to retrieve the necessary context information and complete the service adaptation to context. © 2008 IEEE.