"Conductor: Distributed Adaptation for Heterogeneous Networks describes a new approach to graceful degradation in the face of network heterogeneity - distributed adaptation - in which adaptive code is deployed at multiple points within a network. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated by conductor; a middleware framework that enables distributed adaptation of connection-oriented, application-level protocols. By adapting protocols, conductor provides application-transparent adaptation, supporting both existing applications and applications designed with adaptation in mind." "Conductor: Distributed Adaptation for Heterogeneous Networks is designed to meet the need of a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners in industry and graduate level students in Computer Science."--BOOK JACKET.