MIBsocket: An integrated mechanism to manipulate general network information in mobile communications

Layering architecture of the Internet Protocol provides independent processing for each layer by concealing state information from each layer. Application Program Interface (API) is based on the idea of layering model. However, the idea disturbs efficient processing of applications requiring adaptation to network environment, such as context-aware applications in mobile computing. To address this need, this paper proposes MIBsocket designed as an integrated control and management system for general network information. Any variable information related to network is shared between each applications and operating system. MIBsocket detects and informs changes in network resources to applications. MIBsocket functions such as Get, Set, and Trap used in the application adapts dynamically to any environments. MIBsocket provides portability and facility for applications: it only requires a few modification to the operating system and its API has the same programmable interfaces as usual API's. MIBsocket does not interfere the current layering architecture, but it achieves remarkable improvement on the current model. We have measured costs of MIBsocket, and applied MIBsocket to the application named interface switching system which enables a mobile host to connect to the Internet anytime by switching interface depending on network environment. As a result, the costs of MIBsocket was found acceptable. The application shows that MIBsocket is useful for movement detection and reconfiguration of network resources in the mobile computing.