Adaptation of Collaborative Applications for Network Quality Variation

The ability to access information on demand is a critical capability in the battlefield. Deployed military headquarters are often located in a challenging tactical environment, whereby major disruptions to collaborative work lead to an impairment in the operational capability. These challenges in turn stem mainly from volatile connectivity and sporadic network mobility, which are a feature of the unpredictable nature of the battlefield. A network management approach based entirely on resource reservation is especially difficult in this environment since disturbances and unanticipated events often occur with network-based applications. This paper explores the concept of network awareness in support of continued operation in an unpredictable battlefield environment. In particular, we propose a platform-independent event-delivery framework to facilitate application adaptation, and demonstrate the advantages of this approach in supporting the proactive management of applications.