Modeling context in mobile distributed systems with the UML

Context-awareness plays an important role in mobile distributed systems since it enables the adaptation of mobile devices to the users. However, one of the major challenges is the preservation of the users’ privacy. Many different approaches of modeling the context of the user exist, but the incorporation of privacy restrictions into context models, which makes the protection of privacy apparent, is missing. This paper presents the Context Modeling Profile (CMP), a lightweight UML (Unified Modeling Language) extension, as a visual language for context models in mobile distributed systems. The resulting models embody metainformation of the context, i.e. source and validity of context information, and reflect privacy restrictions. The profile provides several well-formedness rules for context models and supports the development of context-aware mobile applications through an adequate visual modeling language. A case study is used to illustrate the approach.