Future directions for mobile-agent research (original) (raw)
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Architectural guidelines for Mobile Agent Systems
In , Lange claims that lack of a programming model for agent-based applications prevents wider mobile agent deployment, while Johansen argues that it is easy for a systems programmer to build and deploy a mobile agent, but that novice users need a better way to create agents. Kendall et al reason that agent development to date has been done independently, leading to problems such as could assist in a more wide-spread use of mobile agents. The purpose of this literature survey is to gain a knowledge base of the current practices in programming mobile agents in order to formulate such a set of guidelines for creating/programming and using a mobile agent efficiently.
Mobile Agents - The new paradigm in computing
The emergence of agent based systems is signalling the beginning of one of the most important paradigm shifts in computing since object oriented methods and client/server based distributed systems. This paradigm shift will obviously require technology development, but of equal importance, or perhaps of even more importance, it will also require substantial education and methodology development. It is not hard to predict that agent technology is an important emerging technology, since it is already beginning to send shock waves through the computer industry. In the current hype, however, it is particularly difficult to distinguish publicity from reality and to get a clear impression of what agents are all about. In this paper we will try to give a comprehensive overview of what mobile agents are, what they may be used for and what the technical issues are. 1. Introduction The importance of agent technology is not hard to predict, since shock waves are already being felt th...
Providing applications with mobile agent technology
2001
Over the last couple of years we have been working on the development of mobile agents systems and its application to the areas of telecommunications and network management. This work path produced positive results: a competitive mobile agent platform was built, the run-time benefits of mobile agents were proved, and our industrial partners have developed practical applications that are being integrated into commercial products.
Mobile Agent Infrastructures: a Solution for Management or a problem to Manage
Mobile Agent Technology (MAT) is a fresh paradigm for distributed programming, with potential for application in a broad range of fields . A Mobile Agent (MA) corresponds to a small program that is able to migrate to some remote machine, where it is able to execute some function or collect some relevant data and then migrate to other machines in order to accomplish another task. The basic idea of this paradigm is to distribute the processing throughout the network: that is, send the code to the data instead of bringing the data to the code. MA systems differ from other mobile code and agent-based technologies because increased code and state mobility allow for even more flexible and dynamic solutions.
Design issues in mobile agent programming systems
IEEE Concurrency, 1998
We describe the mobile agent paradigm which is becoming increasingly popular for network-centric programming, and compare it with earlier paradigms for distributed computing from which it has evolved. The design of mobile agent systems requires the resolution of several system-level issues, such as the provision of code mobility, object naming, portability, scalability, and a range of security issues that go hand-in-hand with mobile code. Agent programming requires suitable languages and programming models that can support code mobility, and runtime systems that provide some fundamental primitives for the creation, migration and management of agents. We discuss these requirements and describe several mobile agent systems that illustrate di erent approaches taken by designers to address the problems.
Information and Software Technology, 2010
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Mobile Agent Systems: From Technology To Applications
2000
Over the last couple of years we have been working on the development of mobile agents systems and its application to the areas of telecommunications and network management. This work path produced positive results: a competitive mobile agent platform was built, the run-time benefits of mobile agents were proved, and our industrial partners have developed practical applications that are being integrated into commercial products. However, despite the positive results, we feel that mobile agent technology is still not ready to enter the path of mainstream software development. This is the reason why this technology has not yet gain large acceptance by the developers of real applications, despite the large number of interesting experiences already available. In our perspective, one of the main reasons for this situation arises from the traditional approach to mobile agent technology. This approach, based on the familiar concept of mobile agent distributed platforms as extensions of the operating system, focuses too much on mobile agents and associated issues (mobility, agent lifecycle, security, coordination, etc.) and provides poor support for the development of applications where mobile agents are just one of several available technologies. Learning from past experience, we are now working on a new approach where the focus is brought back to the applications and mobile agents become just one the tools available to develop distributed systems. This provides a much lighter framework for application-based mobile agents This paper presents the lessons learned from our previous project and discusses this new concept we are developing: application-centric mobile agent systems. * Mobile agents do impose more complex security problems in fully open environments where there is no user accountability (for authentication and authorization). Nevertheless, most applications are not deployed in that kind of environments.