Enhancing multiprotocol service discovery framework in pervasive computing networks

To obtain access to a specific service or peripheral we need a procedure that processes a query about service type, capabilities, location, and so on, and returns a services and peripherals list. Service Discovery has two important components that people look on distinctly: first is a service discovery protocol which is used to communicate with services on the net; second is service description model which has to be sufficiently powerful so as to allow users to easily find a number of services with precise features but also largely compatible with existing systems. In this paper we propose a service discovery framework which is a previously result from our lab but has a fundamental capability that brings it one step ahead of its previous version: it is multiprotocol enhanced. It includes SLP (Service Location Protocol) and Universal Plug'n'Play Protocol (UPnP) for services discovery, integrated with the powerful descriptive functionalities offered by OWL (Ontology Web Language), a language that permits creation of service ontologies for flexible description of services. This work describe the state of the art of discovery design activity which is being carried out within DAIDALOS (Designing Advanced network Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location independent, Optimised personal Services), a project granted in the European 6(th) Framework Research Programme, within the IST (Information Society and Technology) thematic area.