Intelligent Collaboration Environment in Multi-Agent System Enabling Software Dynamic Integration and Adaptive Evolving

Abstract

Along with the quick development of Internet, network techniques and software techniques, computing development has the remarkable characteristics of distribution, maneuverability and heterogeneous nature. How to expand a system quickly and how to integrate a legacy system into a new one have been more and more concerned. System integration is combined with independent units into a system with harmonious function and intimate connection, rather than simple accumulation of equipments. For lack of integration standards, some problems are brought to the systems inter-connectivity and interoperability. So the information of one system could not be shared by others, the services provided also could not be used and people have to develop a new one. Component-based technique is one of the main means for integrated problem, but it can not meet the need of autonomy, intelligence, dynamic property and domain-oriented extensibility. The rapidly changing environment of internet demands that system integration development should dynamically adapt and actively react to the changing requirements and contexts. However, in the traditional component-based integration technologies, the integrated components are statically bound, and the collaboration mode among them is fixed so that it can not be adjusted and modified especially when system integration is performing. Therefore, these technologies are unable to adapt to the frequently changing requirements and environments. Though the traditional component-based integration approach has brought some solutions towards system integration of information systems, the integrated components is statically bound and the collaboration mode of them is single and fixed, it can not be adjusted and modified especially when the system is running. As above described, in the Internet computing environment, the requirements are variable and the computing contexts are dynamic and changeable,which demands that the collaboration mode of the integrated systems can be dynamically and flexibly modified to rapidly respond to those changes. Therefore, the traditional component-based integration approach can not meet this demand to handle those changes. With the emergence of agent technology, a new approach based on agent was proposed in system integration flied which can resolve the problem above well which the traditional component-based integration approach can not handle. Through wrapping legacy systems