Abstract: We propose an adaptive resource management system that manages computational resources, such as disk space, memory and CPU power, in home-area networks comprised of various devices, such as personal computers and information appliances. This system enables "poor " devices with limited computational resources to borrow excess computational resources from "rich "devices. Existing distributed systems and software frameworks for home-area networks do not account for important characteristics of home-area network environments, such as user needs based on family members ' interests and physical state changes of devices; e.g., disconnection from and reconnection to networks. The proposed system overcomes this problem by employing dynamic adaptation mechanisms. A prototype of this adaptive resource management system, called PPS/J, was designed and implemented on a Java virtual machine. The overhead of the dynamic adaptation mechanisms was measured on the PPS/J, and we found it sufficiently low during application program execution.