For future generation distributed systems to be truly pervasive, they must incorporate, ideally, every networked service and resource. With the notion of resource constantly shifting from the raw computational resources of the early days of high- performance oriented systems, to any type of capability in modern mobile and pervasive systems, we take a fresh look at the intersection of distributed computing systems (and more specifically the Grid) and mobile computing. The latter, we argue in this thesis, can contribute significant functionality and extend the applicability of the Grid, in the context of a fully integrated system. To this end, we introduce the Virtual Cluster architecture and Dynamic Service Aggregation, to provide a high-level virtualized view of the mobile domain. The series of experiments and use cases discussed, illustrate the potential applicability, before we set the tone for future developments in fully integrated mobile Grid environments.
