With the rapid advancement and extensive application of cluster
computing and mobile communication, the integration of these two
technologies become feasible leading to the emergence of a new
paradigm called mobile cluster computing (MCC). Among several
issues that need to be addressed for MCC to become a reality,
timeliness issue is an important one, especially when mobile
nodes within a computing cluster migrate from one cell to
another cell in a cellular wireless network. In this paper, we
first define and analyze the potential application environment
of mobile cluster computing. We also commence with a generic
architecture of a mobile cluster computer and several potential
research issues of mobile cluster computing. In the rest of this
paper, we focus on the timeliness issue of routing and
multicast when handover happens, along with several solution
approaches based on different system architectures.
Click here to download the Cluster Computing Paper
(which is in Postscript format).
Appeared in: Informatica: An International Journal of Computing and
Informatics, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1999.