SmartDOTS - A Framework for Efficient Data Synchronization on Mobile Devices

Mobile enterprise applications typically access data from the enterprise’s various applications. Allowing the mobile application to access these data online only would be a major hindrance for mobile workers that cannot assume a constantly available network connection. We present a middleware called Smart Data Off The Spot (SmartDOTS) for building nomadic distributed enterprise applications. In SmartDOTS, the business data model is represented per device, network, and task; this representation configures SmartDOTS to provide business data tailored to the specific capabilities (e.g., memory capacity) of a device, and needs of a task. The SmartDOTS approach is independent of persistent storages; it is part of the application developer’s task to provide server-side persistency. Thus, any (legacy) application can be integrated with SmartDOTS.