Development of a Mobile Framework for SfleX

1
Development of a Mobile Framework for SfleX

• Under Supervision of
• Dr. Gautam Shroff
• Prof. Huzur Saran
• 
  Kunal Rajvanshi
• 
  Mayank Kumar

2
Table of Contents

• Introduction
• SfleX
• Objective
• Need for a mobile framework
• SfleX Mobile Architecture
• Interface
• Architectural Issues and Revised Architecture
• Mobile Payments

3
Introduction

• Mobile ownership in India to reach 115.3 million
  by 2007.
• By enabling access to crucial applications
  through mobiles, organizations can improve their
  efficiency significantly.
• With growth of technology (advent of 3G, high
  ended phones), application on mobiles are
  becoming more viable.

4

• Maintenance effort forms the bulk (approx 60) of
  a software systems lifecycle
• Expensive to change functionality
• Growing demand for flexible architectures

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SfleX

• The SfleX framework, developed at TCS,
  implements a highly flexible architecture for web
  based transaction processing applications.
• Application functionality can be modified or
  enhanced through configuration, without
  traversing the development cycle.
• With increasing efficiency of interpretation in
  languages such as Python, programming could be
  largely replaced by specification of models that
  are interpreted at run-time by a flexible
  architecture framework.

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Objective

• Extend SfleX framework to Mobiles
• Demonstrate a secure mobile payment application
  using this framework

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• What is the need?
• Flexible
• Can cater to small scale business
• Better user experience
• Customized user interface
• Connectivity

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SfleX Mobile Architecture
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SfleX Mobile Framework Details

• Menu
• A mobile transaction based application can be
  thought of as a tree with non leaf nodes as menus
  and leaf nodes as forms
• Form
• It is associated with a component and has various
  types
• Contains various attributes
• Attribute of a component can be chosen to be
  visible in the form

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• Capturing data
• Main issue is uncomfortable input mechanism
• We emphasize selection of information by clicking
  rather then typing it in
• Prefill An attribute in a form can be declared
  to be prefilled on the basis of choices user made
  in reaching that form
• Security
• Form Different user will see different forms.
• Data List of records visible on the mobile can
  be configured to be dependent on userid.

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• Picklist
• Users can choose the values from a list instead
  of typing
• Predefined list of values that an attribute can
  take can be specified on Html interface of SfleX

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Real World Application

• Add, View or Revise Orders
• Search capability with 5 orders shown per screen.

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Interface

• SMS interface
• Extend SfleX mobile framework to incorporate SMS
• Format of SMS, that is specified at SfleX, is
  configurable
• Simulated Add, Edit record
• Xhtml interface
• Stricter and cleaner version of Html
• Visually appealing interface
• Ported Wml code to Xhtml
• Issue Form size

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• Separate SfleX interface
• A user friendly interface which works as a layer
  above SfleX
• Hides technical details of SfleX
• Change in SfleX configuration will be made by
  host.

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Architectural Issues

• Python interpreter is not fully thread safe
• There is a global lock (GIL) which must be held
  by the current thread before it can safely access
  python objects
• Current Architecture not suitable for mobile
  applications with large number of concurrent users

16
Revised Architecture
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Mobile Payments

• Mobile payments could be next major market driver
  after sms
• Idea is to use our mobile phones to transfer
  money between individuals
• Filipino operator Smart Communications has been
  running exactly such a service in Bahrain
• approximately 11 million transactions a day
• As of March 2006 , 1.3 million people were using
  the G-Cash system which handles 100 million per
  day

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• A simple application using SfleX
• Using SMS, a new transaction can be added
• Specifies sender, receiver and amount to be
  transferred
• An attribute keeps in track status of transaction
  in case user wants to query.

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Security

• Involves
• Confidentiality
• Non-repudiation
• Authentication
• Preventing Duplication
• No security only possible for Micro-payments.
• Services like Paypal uses call-based
  authentication
• Encryption
• Sim based
• Smart Card

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References

• Gautam Shroff, SfleX A Flexible Software
  Architecture for Utility Computing and
  Information Appliances, International Conference
  on Software, Systems Engineering and Applications
  (Paris, December 2004).
• Josef Pieprzyk Formal Analysis of Card-based
  Payment Systems in Mobile devices Macquarie
  University, Sydney, Australia.
• Prateek Agarwal, Huzur Saran, Sanjiva Prasad A
  Security Framework for Disconnected Networks,
  Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
  IIT Delhi
• www.mobilepaymentforum.org
• www.semops.com