computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

, a mobile agent is a composition of

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and data that is able to migrate (move) from one

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

to another autonomously and continue its execution on the destination computer. In reality, the mobile agent is the code/object on the move which travels in its itinerary within the network of connected nodes.

Definition and overview

A ''mobile agent'' is a type of software agent, with the feature of ''autonomy'', ''social ability'', ''learning'', and most significantly, ''mobility''. More specifically, a mobile agent is a

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

that can transport its state from one environment to another, with its data intact, and be capable of performing appropriately in the new environment. Mobile agents decide when and where to move. Movement is often evolved from

RPC RPC may refer to: Science and technology * Rational polynomial coefficient * Reactive Plastic Curtain, a carbon-dioxide-absorbing device used in some rebreather breathing sets * Regional Playback Control, a regional lockout technology for DVDs * ...

methods. Just as a user directs an Internet browser to "visit" a website (the browser merely downloads a copy of the site, or one version of it in the case of dynamic web sites), a mobile agent accomplishes a move through data duplication. When a mobile agent decides to move, it saves its own state ( process image), transports this saved state to the new host and resumes execution from the saved state. A mobile agent is a specific form of

mobile code In distributed computing, code mobility is the ability for running programs, code or objects to be migrated (or moved) from one machine or application to another. This is the process of moving mobile code across the nodes of a network as opposed ...

, within the field of

code mobility In distributed computing, code mobility is the ability for running programs, code or objects to be migrated (or moved) from one machine or application to another. This is the process of moving mobile code across the nodes of a network as opposed ...

. However, in contrast to the

remote evaluation In computer science, remote evaluation is a general term for any technology that involves the transmission of executable software code from a client computer to a server computer for subsequent execution at the server. After the code has finished ...

and

code on demand In distributed computing, code on demand is any technology that sends executable software code from a server computer to a client computer upon request from the client's software. Some well-known examples of the code on demand paradigm on the web a ...

programming paradigms, mobile agents are active in that they can ''choose'' to migrate between computers at any time during their execution. This makes them a powerful tool for implementing distributed applications in a

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

. There are two types of mobile agents. The classification is based on their migration path. # Mobile agents with predefined path: these have a static migration path. # Free roaming mobile agent: these have a dynamic migration path. Depending on the present network condition, the mobile agent chooses its path. An open multi-agent system (MAS) is a system in which agents, that are owned by a variety of stakeholders, continuously enter and leave the system.

History and Evolution

In the early 1990s, General Magic created the Telescript language and environment for writing and executing mobile agents, and described it with the now-popular "

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may co ...

" metaphor; as described by Andy Hertzfeld: The company was unsuccessful, however.

Advantages

Some advantages which mobile agents have over conventional agents are: * Computation bundles - converts computational client/server round trips to relocatable data bundles, reducing network load. * Parallel processing -asynchronous execution on multiple

heterogeneous Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, siz ...

network hosts * Dynamic adaptation - actions are dependent on the state of the host environment * Tolerant to network faults - able to operate without an active connection between client and server * Flexible maintenance - to change an agent's actions, only the source (rather than the computation hosts) must be updated *Bandwidth conversion which is conversion the bandwidth one host to another host. *Reduces compilation time. One particular advantage for remote deployment of software includes increased portability thereby making system requirements less influential.

References

External links

Seven Good Reasons for Mobile AgentsMobile Agent Technologies
developer of AgentOS agent-based operating system. The inventor of Automatic Thread Migration (ATM).

hosts a center for investigating the security of mobile agents.
AgentLink IIIMobile-C
a multi-agent platform for mobile C/C++ agents.
JADE
an OSS mobile agent framework written in JAVA.
The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents
a standards body that defines an interface for agent-based interactions.

a project to develop a secure mobile agent server (last release 2007).
AgentLink III
{{Authority control Distributed computing architecture fr:Agent mobile

Definition and overview

History and Evolution

Advantages

See also

References

External links