SelfService - A Theoretical Protocol for Autonomic Distribution of Services in P2P Communities

Project Summary

What is it?

This research investigates a theoretical protocol for autonomic distribution of services in a P2P environment, as well as the results of its simulated implementation. Our objective is to demonstrate that it is possible to obtain a distribution of the corresponding software modules that meets the requirement of the community in the absence of any centralized resource management. Instead, an acceptable balance between offer and demand is achieved via a "trial-and-error" mechanism, involving a simple, locally applied "reasoning" loop running independently on every peer.

How is it relevant to our business?

In future pervasive computing environments, this technology will help naïve users to make the most of their mobile devices by autonomously adjusting service distribution so as to meet their unique needs, in a highly dynamic and intrinsically unpredictable digital landscape. We envision that BT’s customers will find this ubiquitous access useful in itself, but also anticipate that the technology will act as an enabler, providing a platform on which to build value added services.