Aligning system architectures on requirements of mobile business processes

The support of mobile workers with mobile IT solutions can create tremendous improvements in mobile business processes of a company. The main characteristic of such a mobile system is the ability to connect via a (mobile) network to a central server, e.g. in order to access customer data. This paper presents a detailed description of the four main software architectures for mobile client/server-based systems and their main characteristics. Beyond, typical business requirements in mobile environments like the location of use, data topicality, interaction requirements, synchronisation mechanisms and many more are mapped onto each of these architectures. The presented results can be used for discussing concurrent business needs as well as for deriving a mobile system architecture based on these needs.