A Web Services-based system for ad-hoc mobile application integration

As mobile devices become more powerful and common there will a greater capacity and need for more complex interactions between mobile device-resident software and other server-based software. This can be termed mobile application integration. Mobile computing introduces new opportunities and challenges for application integration. Some of the challenges include small device size, limited bandwidth, limited processing power and lack of integration protocol support. Ad-hoc networks are those that can be formed temporarily while particular devices are in the vicinity of each other and ad-hoc mobile application integration refers to the temporary integration of software modules across devices while such a network exists. This case poses even greater challenges for integration such as dynamically changing combinations of platforms to be integrated across and a requirement for integration to occur dynamically. This paper proposes a novel Web Services-based system that allows such dynamic and temporary integration to occur in ad-hoc mobile networks.