Agent-based Network Research Articles

Distributed Scheduling and Dynamic Pricing in a Communication Network

This paper studies dynamic resource allocation in a decentralized communication network. The temporal aspect in the decentralized resource allocation problem presents new challenges, e.g., in optimizing the delay-throughput trade-off under user-specific delay costs. A dynamic bandwidth allocation game modelling an agent-based network is presented. The dynamic noncooperative game achieves Pareto-efficient bandwidth allocation that can be implemented by a greedy algorithm with pricing. Optimal dynamic pricing is discussed for the efficient sharing of network resources. An ad hoc wireless network is an example of such self-organizing decentralized system: the mobile nodes need not be directly connected to a base station. Another application of the model is to consider distributed uplink scheduling, based on local information, in a WCDMA network. The discretized control variable of a mobile node is either the received power/QoS-level or the binary decision on packet transmission.

Scalability and performance of an agent‐based network management middleware

AbstractRapid growth of computer network sizes and uses necessitate analysis of network application middleware in terms of its scalability as well as performance. In this paper we analyze a distributed network management middleware based on agents that can be dispatched to locations where they can execute close to the managed nodes. The described middleware operates between the network protocol layer and the application layer and uses standard TCP protocol and SNMP probes to interface the network. By aggregating requests from many users into a single agent, our system allows multiple managers to probe problem areas with minimal management traffic overhead. We discuss and quantify the benefits of the described middleware by implementing real‐time network managers using our system.The main result of this paper is a comparison of scalability and efficiency of our agent‐based management middleware and traditional SNMP‐based data collection. To this end, we measured traffic in both real and simulated networks. In the latter case, we designed, used and described here a method of separating simulated application flow into separate subflows to simplify design of simulations. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reusable mobile agents for cluster computing

Adopting mobile agent technology can eliminate the need for the administrator to manage cluster computing systems, e.g. installation and upgrading software; and auditing clusters and networks. However, creating mobile agent-based network management systems is still in an ad hoc manner but not methodologies for building mobile agents for cluster and grid computing. This paper presents a framework for reusable mobile agents for managing cluster computing systems in the sense that they are independent of either particular cluster systems or applications. The framework enables a mobile agent to be composed of two-layered components, which are mobile agents. The first is a carrier for the second over particular networks independent of any management tasks and the latter defines management tasks performed at each host, independently of any networks. The framework also offers a mechanism for matchmaking the two components. As the mechanism has been formulated based on a process algebra approach, it can precisely select a suitable itinerary component to do management tasks at the hosts that the tasks want to visit over networks. The framework provides a theoretical and practical methodology for easily developing and operating mobile agents to travel among multiple clusters to conduct their management tasks at each of the clusters they visit.

Building reusable mobile agents for network management

Mobile agents can migrate among nodes to perform a set of management tasks at each of the visited nodes. Existing mobile agent-based network management systems often assume that their mobile agents are designed to work in particular networks to raise the efficiency of agent migration among multiple nodes. Unfortunately, such mobile agents cannot be reused in different networks. This paper proposes a framework where a mobile agent for network management is composed of two kinds of software components, an itinerary part and a behavioral logic part. Both components are implemented as mobile agents. The former is a carrier designed for particular networks, and it can efficiently navigate other mobile agents among nodes in its target network. The latter defines management tasks performed at each node independently of any local network. This framework allows a mobile agent for network management to be reused in various networks without being modified. A prototype implementation of this framework and its application were built on a Java-based mobile agent system.

Advance Resource Reservation in High Speed Communication Networks: A Survey

A survey of advance resource reservation techniques for guaranteed bandwidth is carried out. A classification of these techniques, on the basis of their effect on different network functions, such as routing, resource management etc, is presented. Agent-based networks, heterogeneous networks and re-negotiations in advance resource reservations have been studied along-with some applications of advance resource reservation.

Agent-based modeling and mapping of a manufacturing system

Considering the agent-based modeling and mapping of a manufacturing system, some system models are described in this paper, which include: domain-based hierarchical structure (DBHS), cascading agent structure (CAS), proximity relation structure (PRS), and bus-based network structure (BNS). In DBHS, one sort of agents, called static agents, individually acts as domain agents, resources agents, user interface agents and gateway agents. And the others, named mobile agents, are the brokers of task and process flow. Static agents representing a sub-system may itself be an agent-based network and should learn, as the mobile agents, to deal with new situations. Mobile agents move around the network domains taking advantage of the resources to fulfill their goals. In CAS, the authors used unified modeling language (UML) to build up an agent-based manufacturing system. It is said that the enterprise agent (the main agent) has factory agents together with some directly jurisdictional workshop agents, cell agents, and individual resource agents. Likewise, the factory agent has workshop agents together with some directly jurisdictional cell agents and individual resource agents, and so on. In PRS, the resources agents are located together by function and abilities. There is only one agent that behaves as the task-announcer. The communication just occurs among the proximity relational agents. BNS is very similar with human society, being connected with a network, some agents, such as “cost calculating”, being to just cope with matter-of-fact jobs. Some agents run as individual resources that can negotiate with each other and advertise a necessary message within the whole domain or a given group of agents. The administration just relies on the individual address of agents and the group ID code of agents.

Mobile agent-based approach for efficient network management and resource allocation: framework and applications

Agent programming technology has emerged as a flexible and complementary way to manage resources of distributed systems due to the increased flexibility in adapting to the dynamically changing requirements of such systems. A very promising application of this technology is related to the control of forthcoming networking systems which will represent a competitive marketplace with a multitude of vendors, operators and customers. Thus, new reference models have to be investigated in order to better satisfy users' requirements in a framework where resource allocation is provided under the control of different and often competing stakeholders (users, network providers, service providers, etc.). We believe that autonomy is one of the features that will characterize the behavior of agents in such environment: autonomous choices will be taken as the result of coordination among different cooperating software entities. Following this direction, we describe the efficient integration and adoption of mobile agents and genetic algorithms in the implementation of a valuable strategy for the development of effective market based routes for brokering purposes in the future multioperator network marketplace. The proposed genetic algorithm provides a kind of stochastic algorithm searching process in order to identify optimal resource allocation strategies. The agent-based network management approach represents an underlying framework and structure for the multioperator network model, and can be used to facilitate the collection and dissemination of the required management data, as well as the efficient and distributed operation of the algorithm. We also present some numerical results to assess the performance and operation effectiveness of our approach, by applying it in some test case scenarios.

Design of the Ajanta system for mobile agent programming

We describe the architecture and programming environment of Ajanta, a Java-based system for programming applications using mobile agents over the Internet. Agents are mobile objects which are hosted by servers on the network. Ajanta provides primitives for creating and dispatching agents, securely controlling agents at remote sites, and transferring agents from one server to another. For secure access to server resources by visiting agents, a proxy-based access control mechanism is used. The Ajanta design includes mechanisms to protect an agent's state and prevent misuse of its credentials. We describe the use of migration patterns for programming an agent's travel path. A pattern encapsulates the abstract notion of agent mobility. Pattern composition allows one to build complex travel plans using some basic migration patterns. Finally, we present agent-based distributed applications implemented using the Ajanta system to demonstrate Ajanta's functional capabilities. These include a distributed calendar management system, a middleware for sharing files over the Internet, an agent-based middleware for distributed collaborations, and an agent-based network monitoring system.

An Agent-Based Decision Network for Concurrent Engineering Design

Engineering design is a complex process. Even in designing a simple product, many decisions must be made by a designer. The problem gets more complex when multiple designers work as a team to design single artifact. In this paper, we take a decision- based approach to model design process and introduce an agent-based decision network (ADN) to support concurrent decision-making and collaboration in design. ADN focuses on making designers consider other team members' decisions when making their own and at tempts to achieve coherent design decisions among designers by explicitly representing and enhancing individual design decision-mak ing and negotiation processes. ADN is composed of a decision-based design process model (DDPM), an objective-based negotiation model (OBNM), and a number of intelligent agents, each associated with a human designer. The DDPM was developed to capture indi vidual designers' design processes. OBNM was developed to facilitate objective-based negotiation and to track both dependencies gen erated and decisions made at each design stage for downstream negotiation support. In ADN, each designer is associated with an agent and both the DDPM and OBNM are captured and facilitated by agents and are not explicitly visible to designers. Agents generate and uti lize the DDPM and OBNM information to support their designers. This paper describes the ADN framework in detail, points out its advan tages, and presents an application example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ADN framework.

An Agent-Based Decision Network for Concurrent Engineering Design

An Agent-Based Decision Network for Concurrent Engineering Design

A scalable agent-based network measurement infrastructure

The rapid growth of computer networks has made the process of understanding the interaction among network components more challenging than ever. The increase in the size of networks is accompanied by the more demanding use of networks by distributed applications that critically rely on the system to function well. Consequently, monitoring the health and stability of networks has become crucial. Tools and probes to measure the performance of networks for the purpose of management, fault diagnosis, or performance evaluation have been developed by several research groups. There is not yet, however, a measurement infrastructure which offers systematic control and management of measurement efforts and performance data focused on supporting distributed network-aware applications. This work addresses the implementation of a scalable and extensible network measurement infrastructure used to capture network state to improve the performance of a distributed application.

Mobile Agent-Based Network and ServiceManagement

Mobile Agent-Based Network and ServiceManagement

Proposal of agent-based network architecture distributed user-agent for easy telecommunication

This paper describes a new network architecture for personal communication services that provides transparent connectivity to different physical networks. We call this system DUET (Distributed User-agent for Easy Telecommuication). In this system both user information and customized service logic are managed independently by a distributed personal agent (PA) that is identified by the personal ID. The location information of users and terminals is managed by distributed area agents (AAs). Each PA interacts with other PAs and AAs to support flexible person-to-person communications in a heterogeneous network environment including mobile terminals. © 1997 Scripta Technica, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt. 1, 80(3): 1–11, 1997