We describe the architecture and the implementation of Multishelf-a decentralized peer-to-peer infomediator. Multishelf was designed and built during a ten-week senior software methodology course using the Proem peer-to-peer platform. We discuss the infomediation problem, present our scalable peer-to-peer solution including the effectiveness of using the Proem peer-to-peer platform, and conclude with plans for future work.

This paper motivates and describes the notion of mobile ad-hoc information systems. Such a system consists of a decentralized and self-organizing network of autonomous, mobile devices that interact as peers. Connectivity is determined by distance between devices; as hosts change their physical location they establish pair-wise communication links based on mutual proximity. We describe application scenarios for mobile ad-hoc information systems and identify technical challenges of a generic software infrastructure. Moreover, we present the goals and architecture of Proem, a peer-to-peer system and development platform for mobile ad-hoc applications. Proem has successfully been used as instructional tool in an advanced software engineering course on peer-to-peer computing.