Effective context awareness is pertinent across networks today. The fact that a standardized solution has not yet been established is testament to the ongoing evolution and volatility of networks and the technologies involved.

In this paper, the authors review context-aware management solutions to highlight gaps in the current understanding and research challenges of provisioning a suite of standardizable context awareness capabilities. There is scope for improved state-of-the-art examples: the authors do not discuss data centers or clouds, for example, important areas where context awareness plays a role in dynamic resource roll-out across networks communicating with mobile devices. They do discuss mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), and delay-tolerant networks (DTNs). While MANETs and VANETs are more commonly found across networks today, fewer people are exposed to the operational advantages of context awareness in DTNs.

The authors advocate an approach that is interoperable across solutions, depending on the scenario being managed. A strategy of this nature is envisaged because “context” is “a vague concept.” It is not vague as such, only variable due to the range of domains where it is applied.

The paper concludes without a clear suggestion for the future of context collection and distribution. It is not an authority for the standardization of context awareness. The authors neither consider in detail the overhead of context awareness nor the accommodation of instances when context is unavailable. The paper is therefore effective in raising questions associated with provisioning a standardizable approach to context awareness, but it does not provide answers to overcoming the current ad hoc nature of its deployment.