A Framework for Enabling Collaboration over Heterogeneous Networks

A key requirement for enabling collaboration between distributed (wired and wireless) clients in a networked environment, with heterogeneous and dynamic capabilities, is an underlying information and QoS management protocol that can adapt on-the-fly based on the local system and client state, so as to maintain effective information sharing. This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of such an adaptive QoS management framework. The framework enables individual clients to locally interpret and transform information to match local resources, client interests and system/network state. The framework is built on an innovative semantic interaction mechanism that provides each client with direct and immediate access to all information defined by its needs and capabilities, without having to maintain and update global rosters. It interfaces with the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to determine the state of the network by directly querying network elements.