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Project: Generative Migration
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The notion of generative mobility introduced in [Agent Factory: Generative Migration of Mobile Agents in Heterogeneous Environments, Brazier et al.] is to base
migration of agents between heterogeneous platforms on annotated agent
blueprints, relying on libraries of agent components to reinstate an
agent. Agents decide to migrate, are serialised together with the
necessary state, and are reconfigured by an Agent Factory at their new
destination using these libraries.
This approach minimises the risk of malicious behaviour (or acquiring
viruses en route) as trusted libraries of building blocks are used.
The data (state) of the mobile code may be inspected by the
destination site, if required.
Cross-platform generative agent migration
In 2003, cross-platform migration between Jade and FIPA-OS has been
studied, and a prototype of the assembly of agents (on the basis of a
blueprint and repositories of building blocks) has been constructed.
We are currently working on a more extensive prototype.
In some agent applications agents need to move between locations to perform their tasks.
Agent migration, however, is often complicated by the heterogeneous nature of the agent environment. For example, the platform from which an agent migrates (source-platform) may not be compatible with the platform to which the agent migrates (destination platform).
Different solutions for cross-platform agent migration are possible. This Msc thesis addresses one such solution, called generative migration. The thesis continues earlier work on generative migration by extending available theory and providing a demonstration and implementation of generative cross-platform agent migration.
Generative Agent Migration
The notion of generative mobility introduced in [Agent Factory: Generative Migration of Mobile Agents in Heterogeneous Environments, Brazier et al.] is to base migration of agents between heterogeneous platforms on agent's structural and functional descriptions, relying on libraries of agent components to reinstate an agent.
Illustrated above is the process of generative migration. The process of generative agent migration involves using a configuration of building blocks to describe the compositional structure of an agent. Such a description is called a blueprint. An agent also has a state (including private data) that is needed for its execution. Both the blueprint and state are described in a format independent of the operating system and agent system, e.g. according to the XML syntax. These descriptions are sent to the destination where an Agent Factory (AF) processes them. An AF re-builds the agent given the blueprint. Building blocks are retrieved from a local repository (a database for reusable building blocks) and an agent is assembled.Finally, the regenerated agent is initiated with its state. Then, the agent is launched into the platform where it continues its execution.
Prototype Implementation
An abstraction from the agent platform interface is introduced by embedding a compositional agent in a wrapper that is an extension of the BaseAgent of an agent platform. A compositional agent can be described in a blueprint document, written in an independent format that can be exchanged between locations. Additionally, state information can be used to initialize a newly generated agent on the target location.
The prototype implemented in this project shows that generative migration of agents can be done from Fipa-OS to JADE. No significant difficulties were encountered and therefore no major problems are expected for re-use of the design for other platforms.
This MSc-research project is part of the IIDS research on software agent (re-)configuration and services for large-scale heterogeneous
distributed agent operating systems. The project was supervised by Prof. Dr. Frances Brazier and Dr. B.J. Overeinder and resulted in a publication for the Fourth European Symposium on Intelligent Technologies, Hybrid Systems and their implementation on Smart Adaptive Systems
10 - 12 June 2004 in Aachen, Germany.
This research is part of our research on software agent
(re-)configuration and services for large-scale heterogeneous
distributed agent operating systems. See our main
Research Projects page for more information on other IIDS projects.
This research project is financially supported by Stichting NLnet.
