A conceptual framework for network and client adaptation

Modern networks are extremely complex, varying both statically and dynamically. This complexity and dynamism are greatly increased when the network contains mobile elements. A number of researchers have proposed solutions to these problems based on dynamic adaptation to changing network conditions and application requirements. This paper summarizes the results of several such projects and extracts several important general lessons learned about adapting data flows over difficult network conditions. These lessons are then formulated into a conceptual framework that demonstrates how a few simple and powerful ideas can describe a wide variety of different software adaptation systems. This paper describes an Adaptation Framework in the context of the several successful adaptation systems and suggests how the framework can help researchers think about the problems of adaptivity in networks.