Service Migration Protocol for NFC Links

In future ubiquitous communication environments, users expect to move freely while continuously interacting with the available applications through a variety of devices. Interactive applications will therefore need to support migration, which means to follow users and adapt to the changing context of use while preserving state. This paper focuses on the scenario of migration between two devices in which the actual migration procedure is executed over near-field communication (NFC) ad-hoc links. The NFC link is interesting as it gives the user the perception of trust and enables service continuity in cases where mid- or long-range wireless connectivity is unavailable. Based on an experimental performance analysis of a specific NFC platform, the paper presents a migration orchestration protocol with low overhead and low delays to be used with NFC links. Experimental results allow to conclude on the sizes of application state that can be expected to be feasible for such ad-hoc NFC migration.