ISBN: 3-540-65578-6
TITLE: Software Agents for Future Communication Systems
AUTHOR: Hayzelden, Alex; Bigham, John (Eds.)
TOC:

Chapter 1: Future Communication Networks Using Software Agents 1
Alex Hayzelden, John Bigham, Michael Wooldridge and Laurie Cuthbert
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Some Agent Related Definitions 3
1.2 Rationale for Multiple Software Agents 6
1.3 Agent Architectures 8
1.4 Open Systems and Heterogeneous Multi-agent Systems 10
1.5 Co-ordination in Multi-Agent Systems 13
1.6 Software Agent Communication 14
1.7 Mobile Software Agents 17
1.8 Trends in Agent-Based Computing 20
Part 2 Communications Systems - Integration of Paradigms 23
2.1 Telecommunications Considerations 23
2.2 The Internet Architecture 24
2.3 General Network Complexity 25
2.4 Users and the Need for Mobility 26
2.5 The Merging of Traditional Telephony and Computing Paradigms 27
2.6 Centralized or Distributed Management 28
2.7 Software Agent Based Network Management 29
2.8 Service Management 30
2.9 Current Telecommunications Management Platforms 31
2.10 Agents and Economic Theory for Telecommunications Management 36
2.11 Guessing the Future of Telecommunications 39
2.12 Challenges of Software Agents in Telecommunications 40
Part 3 Review of the Subsequent Chapters 41
4 Summary 45
Chapter 2: Agents of Change in Future Communication Systems 58
Hyacinth Nwana and Divine Ndumu.
1 Introduction 58
2 Trends, Lessons Learned and some Viewpoints on the Future of Communications Systems 59
3 Distributed Software: the Quintessential 'Glue' of Future Communication Systems 63
4 Agents in Future Communication Systems: A General Case 64
5 Agents Research at BT Labs and Future Communications Systems 68
5.1 Collaborative Agents 69
5.2 Interface Agents/Information Agents 74
5.3 Mobile Agents 80
5.4 Reactive & Hybrid Agents 80
5.5 Heterogeneous Agent Systems 81
6 What Society Should be Doing to Prepare for Emergence of FCS 82
7 Conclusion 83
Chapter 3: A Multi-Agent System Architecture for Scalable Management of High Performance Networks: Applying Arms Length Autonomy 86
Richard Evans, Fergal Somers, David Kerr, and Donie O'Sullivan.
1 Introduction 86
1.1 Network Management Challenges Posed by ATM 87
2 Intelligent Agents 88
2.1 Distributed Management Using Intelligent Agents 88
3 The Hybrid System 91
3.1 Hierarchy of Authorities 91
3.2 Design of an Authority 92
3.3 The Design of Agents 93
3.4 Co-ordinating the Behavior of the Agent System 94
3.5 ASL - Open Agent Architecture 97
4 Concerns about the Agent Approach 101
4.1 Deliberative vs. Reactive Agent Architectures in Hybrid 101
4.2 Tradeoffs in the Choice of Content Language 102
5 Benefits of the Agent Approach 103
5.1 Benefits of Using Agent Technology 103
5.2 Agent Oriented Middleware for Software Integration 104
6 Analysis of Hybrid Performance 105
7 Conclusions 109
Chapter 4: Distributed Intelligent Agents: A Solution for the Management of Complex Telecommunications Services 112
Marius Busuioc.
1 Introduction 112
2 The Agent Platform 113
2.1 Which Agents? 113
2.2 The Architecture Design 114
2.3 Generic Agent Model 117
3 The Prototype 118
3.1 The Implementation of Agent Types 118
3.2 Graphical User Interfaces 120
3.3 Service Scenarios 121
4 Lessons 124
4.1 Decomposition, Distribution and Allocation of Tasks 125
4.2 Communication and Interaction Languages 126
4.3 Coherent Collective Behavior 126
4.4 Inter-agent Negotiation 127
5 Future work 128
Chapter 5: Organization and Coordination for On-Line Routing in Communications Networks 130
Steven Willmott, Boi Faltings, Christian Frei and Monique Calisti.
1 Introduction 130
2 A routing problem 131
2.1 Generic Problem Definition 132
2.2 How Difficult is it? 132
2.3 The Need for Agents 133
3 Applying current work in Distributed Artificial Intelligence 135
3.1 The Network Routing Domain 136
3.2 Current Agent Based Approaches to Routing Problems 140
3.3 Non Agent Based Approaches to the Routing 142
4 Adaptive Control Structures 142
4.1 Blocking Islands and Space Partitioning 143
4.2 How Agents Run Blocking Islands 146
4.4 Description and Discussion 152
5 Conclusions 154
Chapter 6: Multi-Agent Interactions for a Network Management System (Tele-Macs Approach) 160
Alex Hayzelden, John Bigham and Zhiyuan Luo.
1 Introduction 160
2 ATM Network Management - The Problems 162
2.1 Virtual Path Connection Management 162
2.2 Why Adopt Agent Technology? 163
3 Building Modularized Software Systems 164
4 Distributed Multi-Agent Communications Control 166
4.1 Distributed Multi-layered Agent Control Architecture (Tele-MACS) 167
4.2 Functionality of Each Agent 167
4.3 Tele-MACS Approach for Network Management 168
4.4 Suppressed Views of the World 169
5 Application of Tele-MACS to a Network Management Problem 169
5.1 Control of the Bandwidth Resource Configuration in ATM Networks 170
6 Network Management Multi-Agent System Implementation 172
7 Multi-Agent Model (IMPACT System) 174
7.1 Physical Location of the Principle Agents 175
7.2 Multi-threading and Agent Implementation 176
7.3 Agent Communications 177
7.4 Multi-Agent Interactions 178
7.5 Agent Software System 178
8 Future Work 179
9 Conclusion 180
Chapter 7: Resource Adaptation for a Scalable Agent Society in the MoTiV-PTA Domain 183
Christian Gerber, Bernhard Bauer and Donald Steiner.
1 Introduction 183
2 A Generic Resource Allocation Procedure 184
2.1 A Hybrid Representation of an Agent Society 185
2.2 Adaptation through Monitoring and Resource Allocation 187
2.3 The SIF Simulation Environment 189
3 MECCA 190
3.1 FIPA 190
3.2 The MECCA System 192
3.3 Personal Travel Assistance 193
4 Simulation Studies in the PTA Scenario 196
4.1 Simulation 196
4.2 Optimization 198
5 Conclusion and Future Work 202
Appendix 203
Chapter 8: Economic Agents for Automated Trading 207
Chris Preist.
1 Commerce meets the Web 207
2 Agents in Electronic Commerce 208
3 Agents which Negotiate 209
4 Negotiating Strategies 210
5 Marketplaces where Agents Meet 211
6 The Persistent Shout Double Auction 212
6.1 Supply and Demand 212
6.2 Agents which Adapt to the Market 213
6.3 Stable Marketplaces of Agents 215
7 Moving to Realistic Markets 217
Chapter 9: Agent-Oriented Middleware for Integrating Customer Network Services 221
Stefan Poslad, Jeremy Pitt, Abe Mamdani, Robert Hadingham and Philip Buckle.
1 Introduction 221
2 Background: Network and Service Level Integration 223
2.1 Network Level Integration 223
2.2 Service Integration 224
2.3 Use of Middleware to aid Service Integration 226
2.4 Software Agents to Aid Service Integration (Enhance Access) 228
3 Design Issues for Agent-Oriented Middleware 233
3.1 The Importance of Standards 233
3.2 Basic Architectural Designs 235
3.3 The Degree to which the AOM should be Agentised 236
3.4 How to Integrate the Agents with an Existing Infrastructure 237
4 Common Agent Service Brokering Architecture (CASBAh) 238
4.1 Relationship of CASBAh to Other Work 240
4.2 System Prototype and Scenario 241
5 Conclusions 242
Chapter 10: Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving for Communication Network Management 247
Robert Weihmayer and Richard Brandau.
1 Introduction: Toward Cooperative Expert Systems 247
1.1 Application of DAI to Telecommunications 249
1.2 Customer Network Control 250
2 Cooperation in the Customer Network Control Domain 252
2.1 Nature of the Agents and Organization of the Domain 252
2.2 Basic Three-Agent Example 253
2.3 Cooperation to Solve a Facility Failure Problem 256
3 Agent Knowledge and Capabilities 260
3.1 Local Expertise 260
3.2 What Agents Know About Each Other 260
3.3 Interagent Language to Support Cooperation 261
3.4 Agent Control Functions 264
4 TEAM-CPS: A Research Testbed 265
4.1 Planning Issues in Local Agent Problem Solving 265
4.2 Mechanism for Cooperation 266
5 Conclusion and Ongoing Work 267
Chapter 11: Mobile Software Agents for Control in Telecommunications Networks 270
Stephen Appleby and Simon Steward.
1 Introduction 270
2 Rules for Robustness 271
3 Programming a Mobile Agent 272
4 Testing Mobile Agents 273
5 An Example Application 274
5.1 The Load Management Agent 274
5.2 The Parent Agent 277
5.3 Parent Agent Population Management 279
6 Testing the System 280
6.1 The Network 280
6.2 The Traffic Profile 281
6.3 Measuring Agent Performance 281
7 The Nature of the Control Provided by Mobile Software Agents 284
8 Conclusions 285
Chapter 12: Cooperating Mobile Agents for Dynamic Network Routing 287
Nelson Minar, Kwindla H. Kramer and Pattie Maes.
1 Introduction 287
2 Managing Networks via Populations of Mobile Agents 288
2.1 The Importance of Decentralization 288
2.2 Mobile Agents 289
2.3 Flexible Systems 289
2.4 Cognitive Tools for Systems Design 291
2.5 Related Work 292
2.6 Why Not Mobile Agents? 292
3 Experimental Model 294
3.1 Nodes 295
3.2 Agents 295
3.3 Experimental Measurements 297
4 Results 297
4.1 First Result: Performance of a System Over Time 297
4.2 Analysis of Agent Algorithm and Parameters 299
4.3 Overhead analysis 301
5 Conclusions & Future Work 303
Chapter 13: Minimal Agents for Communications Network Routing: The Social Insect Paradigm 305
Ruud Schoonderwoerd and Owen Holland.
1 Introduction 305
2 Load balancing 306
2.1 Least Cost Routing 307
3 Ants in Nature 308
3.1 Basic Principles of Trail Laying 309
3.2 Previous Work on Ants 310
4 Ant-Based Control (ABC) for Network Management 311
4.1 Pheromone Tables 312
4.2 Using Ants for Network Management 313
4.3 Ageing and Delaying Ants 315
4.4 How Calls are Routed 315
4.5 Initialization 316
4.6 Noise 317
4.7 Summary of the Ant-Based Load Balancing System 318
4.8 Parameters 318
5 Results of Experiments 319
5.1 Adaptation to Network Topology 320
5.2 Adaptation to the Call Statistics within a Given Topology 321
5.3 Adaptation to Temporary Situations 321
5.4 Adaptation in General 321
6 Ants for Load Balancing in Packet Switched Networks 321
7 Conclusions 323
Chapter 14: Grasshopper  An Agent Platform for Mobile Agent-Based Services in Fixed and Mobile Telecommunications Environments 326
M. Breugst, S. Choy, L. Hagen, M. Hft, T. Magedanz.
1 Introduction 326
2 Grasshopper  The Agent Platform 327
2.1 Concepts 327
2.2 Agent Development 336
2.3 Grasshopper Conclusion 339
3 Using Grasshopper for Telecommunications 339
3.1 Using Grasshopper within Intelligent Networks 341
3.2 Using Grasshopper within Mobile Communication Systems 347
3.3 One Step Beyond: Active Networking 352
4 Conclusion 354
Chapter 15: Mobile Agents for Managing Networks: The MAGENTA Perspective 358
Akhil Sahai and Christine Morin.
1 Introduction 358
2 State of the Art of Mobile Code in Network Management 359
2.1 Network Management Systems 359
2.2 Mobile Code in Network Management 360
3 Mobile Agents in Network Management? 362
4 The Astrolog Network Management System 364
5 MAGENTA Environment 365
5.1 Components of the Environment 366
5.2 Characteristics of the Environment 367
6 Functionalities of the Astrolog Network Management System 370
7 Performance Evaluation 371
7.1 Context 371
7.2 Comparison between Client Server and Mobile Agents 371
8 Conclusion 379
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