Dr. Thomas Ziegert, SAP Corporate Research
Working in a ubiquitous
computing environment
Challenges for an application
software manufacturer
SAP Corporate Research – Overview
SAP Corporate Research
Investigates new application domains
Sources innovative technology
Stimulates strategic innovation of products and solutions
Currently researches in 9 global Research Programs
Offers more than 6 types of Research Services
SAP CR Worldwide
Walldorf Karlsruhe Sophia Antipolis Johannesburg Brisbane Philadelphia Palo Alto MontrealNew Work Patterns – Casual Mobile Work
Type 2: (suki-ma mode) – working in between
everybody away from the office and having some spare time to work
casual (emergency/convenience) access to business applications
Examples: employees leave requests, time recording, workflow
Requirements
consistent user experience, unspecific device
convenient and secure access (no violation of security policies)
Type 1: Road Warrior
hired to travel, mostly mobile
frequent (mission critical) use
Example: sales & service staff
Requirements
specialized functionality & device
offline app, specially engineered
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What Are The Research Topics?
Device independent software engineering
covers the entire software lifecycle
introduces device independency, context awareness and
multi-modality as determining factors into software
engineering
aims at cost efficiency and usability
Pervasive security
covers security for mobile, wireless & beyond…
provides mechanisms for highly dynamic scenarios, like
ad-hoc networks, collaborations with limited life time
Device Independent Software
Engineering
Device Independent Software Engineering
Challenges
ever growing …
number of end user devices
diversity of device features and application domains
number of (wireless) access/ad-hoc networks
number of context sources
...
resulting in ...
manual adaptation to new devices is costly and cumbersome
automatically generated UIs often dissatisfy people (usability!)
a need for multi-modal and multi-device access to applications
exists
developers do not know anymore the device(s) they develop for
Device independent software engineering
Research Heading
revised software lifecylce, which takes into account:
device independence
context awareness
multi-modal and multi-device support
usability engineering methods for device independence
context information
standards for the description and interchange
methods for the use of context information
This will lead to...
systematic, disciplined, and quantifiable approaches for the
cost-efficient development and evolution of high-quality, device
Solution Bit: Device Independent User Interfaces
An application UI must be semantically
adapted for every device class
Problem
probably some 10+ specialized UIs
required to bring an application to all
device classes
significantly increases effort for UI
development
Solution
device independent UI
plus meta
information on UI semantics
Enterprise-Security: The Model of the Past...
Basic Assumption: Everything Outside is Evil...
Approach to Implementing Security:
1. Security is separated from applications,
2. Security technology is deployed at the infrastructure
level
Enterprise Security Strategy
Server
Clients
Access Network Communi-cation Platform (Web Server) Access Network Communi-cation Platform (Web Browser)Move up !
WEP, GEA1/2,... IPSEC,...Application Appl-oriented Sec. Application
HTTPS
Security Should be Handled
at the Application-level!
Pervasive security
Challenges
Heterogeneity: many administrative domains, no central trust
relationship
“Virtual Anonymity”: Collaboration with previously unknown
principals
Complex software architectures: Portals, Exchanges, Proxies,…
Highly Dynamic Scenarios: ad-hoc networks, collaborations with
limited life time
resulting in ...
Classical access control does not work any more…
infrastructure-level security is insufficient...
Research Heading
Application-oriented security
Conclusion
Technology-wise Mark Weisers Vision is reality now.
It is now time to devise sound software engineering
methods and security mechanisms to bring ubiquitous
computing applications from the exceptional to the
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