Mobile agent-based data management in grid systems

Abstract

Since ten years, the Grid systems are hot research topics. Recently, the Grid systems open towards the management of heterogeneous and distributed data on a large-scale environment. The Grid data management raises new problems and presents real challenges: (i) resource discovery and allocation, (ii) query processing and optimization, (iii) monitoring services, (iv) replication and caching, (v) cost models, (vi) autonomic data management, and (vii) security. The main characteristics offered by these systems are: large scale (e.g. high numbers of data sources, and computing resources) and dynamicity of nodes (unstable system). The synergy and convergence of interests between Grid systems and agent systems have been clearly pointed out. To address some of the above problems, a complementary approach (with respect to web services and P2P techniques) based on mobile agents deserves to be explored. In this talk, we draw up a synthetic state of the art of using mobile agents to solve some fundamental problems of data management in grid systems (e.g. resource discovery and allocation, distributed query and optimization, monitoring services for query optimization, cost models). We point out the advantages of mobile agents and how they can help for decentralized control, and scaling.