The Konark Peer-to-Peer Service Discovery Development Toolkit
The goal of the Konark project is to provide developers with a high level API to easily create applications used to discover and deliver services in an ad-hoc environment. At the base level, Konark is a protocol that uses this API to locate services, determine what is needed by the users, and deliver the services similar to web services. However, web services require an Internet connection. With Konark, no solid Internet connection is needed. A device may roam in and out of the network as they wish and rely on the hardware to take care of the connection.
Konark exists in four parts: the discovery protocol, the delivery protocol, the registry, and the service creation. The basic Konark protocol works as follows:
1. The registry loads a standard service tree describing all possible categories of services. At this point, the developer of the application has the option to register any existing services.
2. Discovery of services: Discovery determines what services are available and for how long. Discovery can be customized for specific services.
3. Once services are discovered, delivery may take place by either calling an HTTP server on the distant machine or by receiving HTTP requests from a distant machine, depending on who is invoking the service. There are two steps in delivery.
a. Getting the full service description. This delivers the XML file that describes the service entirely. This is read by the calling device and the user can determine if he/she wants the service.
b. If the user determines he/she wants to invoke the service, the final step, which is the service delivery, occurs.
4. The final aspect of Konark is the creation of services. Following only a few Konark standards, developers can write and produce their own custom services for almost any application.
This tutorial will cover writing applications using the Konark API for each of these steps. The final step requires a simple understanding of the Konark delivery standards to write a custom service. Below, each of the steps is covered.
What can you do with Konark?
Learn how to create new services.
Download the dll file, and example KonarkApps.
Building a Konark application step by step.