An agent model for managing distributed software resources in grid environment

Abstract

Grid technologies enable large-scale sharing of many types of resources, among which software resources are a vital part. Abundant software resources exist in geographically distributed hosts in grid environment. The characteristic "distributed" makes the discovery, characterization, and monitoring of them challenging due to the considerable diversity, large numbers, dynamic behavior, and geographical distribution of the software entities. Thus, we put forward here an agent model, which is built on grid technologies, to manage the software resources in grid environment. The agent can store, retrieve and manage the information of software resources through a resource directory. Our model also provides a visualizing uniform interface by which user can easily find software resources in grid and utilize them. To sum up, this agent is a middleware between end user and software resources. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.