Network-awareness: In heterogeneous environments, multiple devices may connect to each other via different network links, varying from high-speed LAN, dial-up, to wireless connection, where the characteristics of the network are different from each other. Even with a known network connection, dramatic network performance changes are often experienced during a particular communication session, especially in wireless networks. Bandwidth, latency, jitter etc. are commonly used to specify the network characteristics.

Device-awareness: The need for device-awareness lies in the fact that computing devices (e.g. PC, Palm) that host applications in heterogeneous environments may vary significantly in their device capacity parameters, namely CPU power, display size, memory size, display refresh rate etc. Devices are more diversified in pervasive computing, where different types of devices are interconnected.

User awareness: End user is one of the most dynamic factors in a computing environment, since they may have very different preferences for a single application.

Application awareness: Internal states of the local and remote applications can also affect the adaptation. Adaptation middleware needs to exchange the shared internal states across the network.

Environment awareness: Physical environment can be measured by sensor networks. For example, a sensor network consists of many sensor devices that measure the environment, and communicate with each other through wireless link. Adaptation can then be triggered by external environmental events.