Combining caching with a cloud hosted proxy to support mobile consumers of RESTful services

Abstract

There are numerous problems to be addressed when connecting mobile clients (e.g. smartphones and tablet devices) with Web services. These devices consume Web services via wireless channels; and as a result, developers and researchers are investigating different approaches to address challenges related to network fluctuation, latency, and low bandwidth. In addition, most of these devices have limited capabilities in terms of information processing and resource storage. This research focuses on enabling mobile devices for consuming RESTful Web services efficiently. The aforementioned problems of network instability are addressed in this research by proposing and implementing a cloud centric proxy server architecture; which is based on mirroring resources. The mirroring of the Web server’s resources on the mobile device and the proposed proxy server is achieved by exploring caching techniques. Furthermore, an evaluation is done to determine what kind of components and architecture is required for supporting resource constraint mobile devices like smartphones and tablets while connecting them with RESTful systems. By linking the caching components of the mobile devices with a cloud-hosted proxy server, it becomes possible to share caches and achieve significant performance boost for mobile consumers of the RESTful Web services.