UBIQUITOUS NETWORKS

UBIQUITOUS NETWORKS

1.Introduction     

1.1    What is Ubiquity?

        Ubiquity means “Anytime, anywhere”. It is total mobility. One can use this ubiquity in technical aspects, say computing. While concerning computing we have to consider networking area. With the help of ubiquity life is going to be very much easier than before and much more comfortable. We can say that concept of using ubiquity in the computing world, beyond the desktop is going to be a new paradigm in the Information Technology.

1.2    The power of ubiquitous computing

         Computers in the workplace can be as effortless, and ubiquitous, as that. Long-term the PC and workstation will wither because computing access will be everywhere: in the walls, on wrists, and in "scrap computers" (like scrap paper) lying about to be grabbed as needed. This is called "ubiquitous computing", or "ubicomp". Ubiquitous computing has as its goal the enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, but making them effectively invisible to the user. A number of researchers around the world have worked in the ubiquitous computing framework. Their work had impacted all areas of computer science, including hardware components (e.g. chips), network protocols, interaction substrates (e.g. software for screens and pens), applications, privacy, and computational methods.
            Ubiquitous computing is not virtual reality, it is not a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) such as Apple's Newton, it is not a personal or intimate computer with agents doing your bidding. Unlike virtual reality, ubiquitous computing endeavors to integrate information displays into the everyday physical world. It considers the nuances of the real world to be wonderful, and aims only to augment them. Unlike PDA's, ubiquitous computing envisions a world of fully connected devices, with cheap wireless networks everywhere; unlike PDA's, it postulates that you need not carry anything with you, since information will be accessible everywhere. Unlike the intimate agent computer that responds to one's voice and is a personal friend and assistant, ubiquitous computing envisions computation primarily in the background where it may not even be noticed. Whereas the intimate computer does your bidding, the ubiquitous computer leaves you feeling as though you did it yourself.

             Because ubiquitous computing envisions hundreds of wireless computers in every office, its need for wireless bandwidth was prodigious. For instance, in a not-very-large building with 300 other people. If each had 100 wireless devices in offices, each demanding 256kbits/sec, using 7.5 gigabits of aggregate bandwidth in a single building. A second challenge of the mobile infrastructure was handling mobility. Networking developed over the past twenty years with the assumption that a machine's name, and its network address, were unvarying. However, once a computer can move from network to network this assumption was false. Existing protocols such as TCP/IP and OSI were unprepared for to handle machine mobility without change. A number of committees and researchers worked on methods of augmenting or replacing existing protocols to handle mobility. Third challenge of the mobile infrastructure was window systems.

            Most window systems, such as those for the Macintosh and for DOS, were not able to open remote windows over a network. Even window systems designed for networking, such as X, had built into them assumptions about the mobility of people. The X window system protocol, for instance, made it very difficult to migrate the window of a running application from one screen to another, although this was just what a person traveling from their office to a meeting might want. Ubiquitous computing, whereby Internet appliances automatically satisfy almost any need could improve the way companies conduct business. Corporations could use it to automate their flow of information and dynamically adjust operations to fit the environment. "Today networking is not at all transparent," Ubiquitous networking will allow connectivity to corporate applications anywhere, anytime. Employees will be able to retrieve and send information easily from their cars, mobile devices, and homes as well as from their offices. Creating an architecture methodology provides the key to developing these new solutions.