Service Advertisements in MANETs (SAM): A Decentralized Web Services Discovery Protocol

Web services technology is in widespread use, but employing the technology in highly dynamic environments is a challenge. The current Web services discovery standards are tailored for use in fixed infrastructure networks and single hop ad hoc networks. They are not suitable for use in highly dynamic multi-hop mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), such as the networks employed in search and rescue operations. In a search and rescue operation we also need to know about not only the available services, but also where the nodes participating in the operation are. In this paper we address these needs by designing an experimental Web services discovery protocol that can be used in such multi-hop MANETs. We combine service and location discovery in our novel Web services discovery protocol called SAM, which we have implemented, tested in a field trial, and released as an open source project.