Abstract

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET) are expected to become major components of Next Generation Networks (NGN). The success of MANET will be largely determined by the availability of services to users. The protocol of choice to establish service-enabling multimedia sessions in NGN is the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This is due to the ability of SIP to support both traditional telephony services and emerging services for convergent networks. Several technologies to enable easy programmability of SIP services have emerged; most notably the SIP Servlet Technology. In this technology, services are programmed using SIP servlets. A SIP servlet is a Java application that runs in an environment provided and managed by a SIP Servlet Engine (SE). Applicability of SIP Servlet Engines to MANET is an interesting topic because of the success that SIP Servlet Technology has enjoyed in provisioning services for infrastructure networks. A SIP SE is a centralized server node that is not suited for infrastructureless environments that consist of nodes that are both mobile and transiently present. Currently, SIP Servlet technology has provisions for creating "distributable" servlets which allow multiple instances of the same servlet to run on multiple nodes. On the one hand this kind of servlet distribution can achieve load sharing and high availability in infrastructure networks. On the other hand, this scheme is not sufficient for MANET because the SIP SE remains a fixed and centralized entity requiring powerful processing and storage capabilities. We propose a solution to de-centralize the SIP SE by distributing its functionalities across multiple nodes. A collection of nodes may be present in a MANET such that SIP SE functionality can be assembled from the combined capabilities of the available nodes. When this condition is present, these nodes can come together to collectively pose as a SIP SE to the entities that wish to either provide or consume SIP services. In this thesis a distribution scheme that would allow a SIP SE to be used in MANET has been devised and implemented. The resulting scheme has been evaluated with two conferencing services