Opportunistic Software Deployment in Disconnected Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This paper presents a middleware platform allowing the dissemination of software components on handheld devices forming a disconnected MANET. It is based on a model that exploits peer-to-peer and opportunistic interactions between neighboring devices to deploy component-based applications, without relying on any kind of infrastructure network. Each device runs a deployment manager, which strive to fill a local component repository with software components so as to be able to satisfy the deployment requests expressed by the user. To do so the deployment manager interacts with peer managers located on neighboring devices, providing its neighbors with copies of software components it owns locally, while obtaining itself from these neighbors copies of components it lacks. The platform also provides communication facilities adapted to disconnected MANETs that notably allow efficient multi-hop exchanges.