Fednets

Abstract

A personal network (PN) is a network of a user’s personal devices and services, cooperating with each other independently of their geographical location to provide ubiquitous services to the user. PNs can be the producers and consumers of the services, content and resources. They can also export the subsets of their personal resources and services to other PNs. In such cases, PNs may form a group-oriented secure network called a Federation of Personal Networks (Fednet). A Fednet is a temporal, ad-hoc opportunity or purpose driven network of PNs, in which PNs collaborate with each other to share resources and services in a peer-to-peer manner. A Fednet is a pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology that enables the users to enjoy cooperation and promises exciting opportunities for different applications in various fields, such as education, healthcare, entertainment, business and emergency.In this chapter, the authors discuss PN technology expanding on the concept of Fednet. They provide example scenarios for Fednets, showing their potential impact to the quality of life of their users. Furthermore, they present the architecture and lifecycle of a Fednet. They explain the interactions of the main architectural components during its lifecycle and present a framework for the secure access control and management for a Fednet. The framework provides a controlled collaboration of PNs, where each PN controls the access to its resources and services. Finally, the authors provide a brief overview of some of the existing resource sharing group-oriented networks related to Fednets.