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Communications Architecture between devices At the high level, the TheTable reservation management system is composed of 6 systems that

are interconnected by a communication network that is rooted in the 7 layers of the OSI model.
The 6 systems that comprise the ecosystem are 1. TheTable mobile application
2. TheTable watch
3, TheTable appserver
4.TheTable core databases
5. TheTable restaurant back-end web portal management app
6. TheTable restaurant web portal

A high level depiction of the components and the communication network that connects them is
attached here as the Communication Architecture High Level Diagram

The diagram above denotes 6 interfaces that will be discussed in the next section.
10 layer model breakdown of architecture

The communications architecture can be decomposed using the 10 layer model of information
systems. Level 3 represents the communication network services that are required to interconnect
the different hardware (processing and storage platforms that are at level 4) of the system. Level
2 represents the physical mediums of connectivity to form a basis for the Level 3 connectivity
services. A description of the communication architecture will also require a description of the
framework services and common software and enterprise services that are part of the overall
information system.
Interface 1 and 2 Between the TheTable watch and the iOS application (Interface 1) and
the Android application (interface 2). This interface has the following components Level 2- Bluetooth RF operating at the 2.5GHz frequency
Level 3 Bluetooth Architecture using the Bluetooth Stack
Level 5/6 The watch utilizes a proprietary developed processing framework to populate packets
formatted according to the IEEE 802.15.1 Bluetooth WPAN specifications. The packets are
interpreted via the Android platforms Bluetooth API framework and the iOS platforms Core
Bluetooth framework to yield information that can be used by the application.

Description - Bluetooth (Bluetooth Low Energy) is a wireless medium that can be used to
transmit and receive data Compared to the traditional IEEE 802.11 family of communication
media that is used to implement Wifi, Bluetooth is lower cost and lower energy at the cost of
lower rates of data transmission. For purposes of the TheTable application however Bluetooth is
an acceptable medium of connectivity.
The Bluetooth architecture in the context of the TheTable application ecosystem can be
abstracted in the form of a Bluetooth stack that is present in the watch and the mobile

application OS.
The Bluetooth architecture can be summarized within context of the 7 layer OSI model as
follows (Liu) -

The portion representing the Bluetooth Data and Physical link from the L2CAP to the RF
frequency can be abstracted as the Bluetooth Stack and is the common portion that sets the
Level 3 and Level 2 restrictions on the application frameworks and middleware (Levels 5 and 6)
residing on the watch and mobile application operating systems.

Interface 3 Between the TheTable mobile application and the TheTable application
server.
Level 2- Internet connectivity via wifi between the mobile devices and the app server. Wifi is
rooted in the IEEE 802.11 standards and uses the 2.4 GHz UHF Radio band.
Level 3 This is composed of internet connectivity services using the 7 layer OSI model with
the following decomposition
Layer
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Name
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data
Physical

OSI Protocols
HTTP
JPEG
RPC
TCP
Ip v4
PPP
Wifi (IEEE 802.11)

Level 5/6 The application frameworks written on the mobile devices are coded in the native
API formats Android and iOS. The applications on both platforms integrate with the common
appserver that hosts services over internet connectivity in a Service-Oriented model that links
to core databases.

Description - The mobile app server interface is based on a platform independent web service
model. This has been the design choice in order to take maximum advantage of the special
features of each different mobile OS for example the iOS app could take benefit of Apple Pay,
iHealth and even Apple Music, something that becomes harder in case a platform independent
framework was used to code the app. Using a service-oriented architecture allows the
implementation to take advantage of the best features of native OS based frameworks and the
rapidly increasing power of virtualized computing.
The main components of this web based service would be 1. SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol This is a messaging protocol that is used for
exchanging messages. It uses XML for its message format. SOAP is transported using the HTTP
protocol (Level 7 of the OSI model)
2. WSDL Web Services Description Language This is used to provide information about a
web service to applications requesting its usage. It serves like a means to notify the application
about the applicability of the service and the details of its usage.
3. UDDI - Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration. UDDI is an XML-based standard
for describing, publishing, and finding web services. It is a specification for a distributed registry
of web services. It can be considered as a library of web services that contains definitions of the
different services hosted by the service provider (which pushes meta data about these services
onto this registry)
The Level 5 framework would thus work in the following fashion The application on a mobile
phone would request a service using the HTTP protocol, for example finding a list of restaurants
that are registered with the system. It would look up the UDDI via a Discover Service request
call, the UDDI would return the appropriate service for which the application framework would

download the WSDL. It would then be able to create XML SOAP requests that can interact with
the desired service to perform the needed functionality.

Interface 4 Between the TheTable application server and the core database.
Level 2 Internet connectivity for which the medium would be wired optical fiber that links the
servers hosting the applications in regional data centers with the core data center. A 10 Gigabit
optical fiber L2 connection would be classified under IEEE 802.3ae.
Level 3 This is composed of internet connectivity services using the 7 layer OSI model with the
following decomposition
Layer
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Name
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data
Physical

OSI Protocols
HTTP
JPEG
RPC
TCP
Ip v4
PPP
10 Gigabit Optical Fiber

Level 5/6 The database will use an Oracle Framework for database management that allows the
system to take advantage of Database web services along with the Fusion Middleware services
that maximize the utilization of web services. On the appservers side a SOA based web service
framework will be utilized.
(The two diagrams and overview of database systems operation are obtained from Oracle)
Description The databases that store the information are hosted in core datacenters and contain
vital information to the application ecosystems operations. The databases are also highly critical
from a security standpoint and contain information that needs to be kept protected. Allowing the

web services hosted on the app server and the restaurant management portal to directly access
the database and run SQL queries on it would leave the entire system extremely prone to hackers
who might exploit security vulnerabilities to carry out a SQL injection attack. In order to protect
the system and speed up querying/retrieval and ensure that the databases are themselves kept up
to date it is preferable to use a Database management framework such as the Oracle Database
Management system along with their Fusion Middleware services that includes the Weblogic
Database server (Oracle).
The framework provides an interface to web services that makes it convenient for database callins and call-outs.
The middleware server ensures consistency, reliability, speed and security of database access.
Database Call-in process In this process a web service that needs access to the core databases
will use the service oriented architecture described in the previous section to interact with the
WebLogic DBMS server which contains an applet for interacting with the actual database where
the information is stored.

(Image from Oracle)


Database Call-out process This is the process by which a database accesses a web service with
the intention to update the information stored within it. For theTable, this process is crucial
because a restaurant management ecosystem is highly dynamic. Utilizing the Oracle DBMS
framework with the Middleware is once again a good design choice as it makes the process of
interacting with different services on different platforms easy.

(Image from Oracle)


Interface 5 Between the TheTable core database and the Restaurant Back-end
management app
TheTable restaurant back-end web portal management app acts as an appserver on the restaurant-

side and hence its operation is very similar to Interface 4 (between the appserver on the users
side and the core database)
Level 2 Internet connectivity for which the medium would be wired optical fiber that links the
servers hosting the applications in regional data centers with the core data center. A 10 Gigabit
optical fiber L2 connection would be classified under IEEE 802.3ae.
Level 3 This is composed of internet connectivity services using the 7 layer OSI model with the
following decomposition
Layer
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Name
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data
Physical

OSI Protocols
HTTP
JPEG
RPC
TCP
Ip v4
PPP
10 Gigabit Optical Fiber

Level 5 The frameworks would be the same as in interface 4. The back-end server would have
a web based Service Oriented architecture framework that would allow it to create/receive web
service requests that it would host. The database would utilize the same Oracle Database
framework with the Weblogic server for handling database queries and updates.
Interface 6 Between the TheTable restaurant management web portal (back-end) and the
restaurant reservation web portal (restaurant front-end)
Level 2- Internet connectivity via wifi between the web portal which will be hosted on a mobile
application or a computer and the app server. Wifi is rooted in the IEEE 802.11 standards and
uses the 2.4 GHz UHF Radio band.

Level 3 This is composed of internet connectivity services using the 7 layer OSI model with
the following decomposition
Layer
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Name
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data
Physical

OSI Protocols
HTTP
JPEG
RPC
TCP
Ip v4
PPP
Wifi (IEEE 802.11)/Ethernet

Level 5/6 This interface is similar to interface 3 between the app server and the mobile
applications. The only main difference is that the restaurant application can be hosted on a
computer as a traditional software application or on a tablet running an Android or iOS platform
Operating system. In either case, the Level 5 framework for communication uses a platform
independent service oriented architecture that provides interoperability and ease of
communication in order for the front-end to access web services from the back-end (The
components of an SOA based framework described in Interface 3 are very much applicable here
as well)

References http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E21764_01/web.1111/e13735/dbws.htm#WSRPA289
http://progtutorials.tripod.com/Bluetooth_Technology.htm

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