Heterogeneous Data Source Middleware for Android E-Health Application

Heterogeneous data sources management is a big challenge for complex projects, especially in the situation of sensor net work. The incompatibility of different data sources makes it complicated for a project to modify databases in use or adapt to new sensors. In this paper, we propose a middleware solution to address the problem. The middleware uses an abstract class to shield the differences among heterogeneous data sources and creates a data source service wrapper for each. Both permanent data info and real-time data flows should pass through the middleware during communication of data sources and application. And by implementing a corresponding data source service wrapper, it´s very convenient to add a new data source. At the same time, the middleware uses XML to accomplish data mapping and transmission, so as to solve the incompatibility of data sources schema and ensure platform independence. We deployed the middleware to our E-Health project. Our experience has proved the flexibility and extensibility of the middleware.