CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION

The advancements in wireless technologies have shifted the computing paradigm from

static computing to mobile computing where a mobile user could perform the computing

tasks while user is on the move. Small sized easy to carry mobile computational units

are being developed that could communicate over wireless communication medium. Mo-

bile computing paradigm resulted in rapid growth of resource hungry mobile applications.

The demand for wireless bandwidth soon became many folds, compared to the bandwidth

available through most advanced wireless technologies. In addition, small size require-

ments of mobile devices resulted in limited computational resources and limited battery

power. Researchers have overcome the limitations of mobile devices through mobile

cloud computing (MCC).

MCC connects the resource limited mobile devices with the resource rich clouds

using wireless communication. A significant part of the mobile application is executed

in the cloud while mobile device is used only for user interaction and display of results.

At the same time, the communication between mobile device and the cloud is minimized

in an effort to reduce the use of resource limited communication medium. This thesis

addresses the research problem of cloud based mobile application state loss in the domain

of MCC. Therefore, we start the thesis as well as this chapter with the brief introduction

to MCC.

This chapter is organized into six sections. In Section 1.1, we discuss the domain

background of MCC, wireless communication limitations and their impact on cloud based

mobile application execution. Section 1.2 presents the motivation for research study in

the domain of MCC. Section 1.3 highlights the research gap, briefly explains the problem

of state loss of cloud-based mobile applications and summarizes the statement of the

problem. Section 1.4 enlists the research objectives of the research study carried out

in this thesis. Section 1.5 summarizes the methodology followed in the research and