Context-dependency in internet-agent coordination

Abstract

The design and development of Internet applications can take advantage of a paradigm based on autonomous and mobile agents. However, mobility introduces peculiar coordination problems in multiagent-based Internet applications. First, it suggests the exploitation of an infrastructure based on a multiplicity of local interaction spaces. Second, it may require coordination activities to be adapted both to the characteristics of the execution environment where they occur and to the needs of the application to which the coordinating agents belong. In this context, this paper introduces the concept of context-dependent coordination based on programmable interaction spaces. On the one hand, interaction spaces associated to different execution environments may be independently programmed so as to lead to differentiated, environment-dependent, behaviors. On the other hand, agents can program the interaction spaces of the visited execution environments to obtain an application-dependent behavior of the interaction spaces themselves. Several examples show how a model of context-dependent coordination can be effectively exploited in Internet applications based on mobile agents. In addition, several systems are briefly presented that, to different extent, define a model of context-dependent coordination. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.