TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mallah, Ranwa Al 
AU  - Quintero, Alejandro 
PY  - 2009
TI  - A Light-Weight Service Discovery Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks
JF  - Journal of Computer Science
VL  - 5
IS  - 4
DO  - 10.3844/jcssp.2009.330.337
UR  - https://thescipub.com/abstract/jcssp.2009.330.337
AB  - Problem statement: In mobile ad hoc networks devices do not rely on a fixed infrastructure and thus have to be self-organizing. This gives rise to various challenges to network applications. Existing service discovery protocols fall short of accommodating the complexities of the ad-hoc environment. However, the performance of distributed service discovery architectures that rely on a virtual backbone for locating and registering available services appeared very promising in terms of average delay but in terms of message overhead, are the most heavy-weight. In this research we propose a very light-weight, robust and reliable model for service discovery in wireless and mobile networks by taking into account the limited resources to which are subjected the mobile units. Approach: Three processes are involved in service discovery protocols using virtual dynamic backbone for mobile ad hoc networks: registration, discovery and consistency maintenance. More specifically, the model analytically and realistically differentiates stable from unstable nodes in the network in order to form a subset of nodes constituting a relatively stable virtual Backbone (BB). Results: Overall, results acquired were very satisfactory and meet the performance objectives of effectiveness especially in terms of network load. A notable reduction of almost 80% of message signaling was observed in the network. This criterion distinguishes our proposal and corroborate to its light-weight characteristic. On the other hand, results showed reasonable mean time delay to the requests initiated by the clients. Conclusion: Extensive simulation results obtained confirm the efficiency and the light-weight characteristic of our approach in significantly reducing the cost of message overhead in addition to having the best delay values when compared with strategies well-known in the literature.