System Architecture for the Exchange of structured multimedia Data and the Role of Multimedia Database Systems in the Context of Mobile Environments

In this paper an architecture is presented which enables applications on mobile computers to transparently exchange multimedia objects with applications on stationary servers. The components of our architecture face the common problems of mobile computing like limited bandwith, end systems with limited resources and frequent disconnections. Therefore they are designed to efficiently use the available resources and to minimize these problems. This is done, e.g. by using object specific methods of data reduction and level-of-detai l, by adaption of transfer to given Quality-of-Service parameters, and by data compression. All these methods are influenced by contexts like local resources, available communication channels, and user preferences. The rapidly growing interest in building multimedia tools and applications has also created a need for the development of multimedia database management systems (MMDBMSs) as a tool for efficient organization, storage and retrieval of multimedia objec ts. We review the state of the art and research contibution from related disciplines. Finaly, we consider possibilities and probabilities for MMDBMS in the context of the project MOVI.