Abstract
Data management for distributed computing has spawned a variety of research work and commercial products. At the same time, recent technical advances in the development of portable computing devices and the rapidly expanding cordless technologies have made the mobile computing a reality. In conjunction with the existing computing infrastructure, data management for mobile computing gives rise to significant challenges and performance opportunities. Most mobile technologies physically support broadcast to all mobile users inside a cell. In mobile client-server models, a server can take advantage of this characteristics to broadcast information to all mobile clients in its cell. This fact introduces new mechanisms of data management which are different from the traditional algorithms proposed for distributed database systems. In this chapter, we give executive summary and discuss topics such as data dissemination techniques, transaction models and caching strategies that utilize broadcasting medium for data management. There is a wide range of options for the design of model and algorithms for mobile client-server database systems. We present taxonomies that categorize algorithms proposed under each topic. Those taxonomies provide insights into the tradeoffs inherent in each field of data management in mobile computing environments.
