Although current research on agent systems focuses on relatively small-scale agent systems, soon vast numbers of agents will be deployed in large-scale agent systems, e.g. on the Internet. Large-scale agent systems need to be extensible

B.J. Overeinder

Ballintijn

Barber

Berners-Lee

Brazier

Dale

Dastani

De Wilde

Dennett

Doorenbos

F.M.T. Brazier

Finin

Fuggetta

Gong

Gudivada

Holland

Iskra

Jennings

Karnik

Lange

Levy

M. van Steen

Maes

Martin

Meyer

Milojicic

Minsky

N.J.E. Wijngaards

Neuman

Nwana

Odubiyi

Omicini

Peine

Pierre

Reiter

Shehory

Shoham

Suri

Sycara

Tanenbaum

Thompson

Tripathi

Turner

van de Riet

van Steen

Wooldridge

Wurman

Özsu

The Internet provides a large-scale environment for (intelligent) software agents. Agents are autonomous (mobile) processes, capable of communication with other agents, interaction with the world, and adaptation to changes in their environment

Brazier, F.M.T.

Overeinder, B.J.

Steen, M. van

Wijngaards, N.J.E.

DSpace at VU

Supporting Internet-Scale Multi-Agent Systems

van Steen, M.

VU Research Portal

VU Research PortalSupporting Internet-Scale Multi-Agent SystemsBrazier, F.M.T.; Overeinder, B.J.; van Steen, M.; Wijngaards, N.J.E.published inProceedings of the Fourteenth Belgium-Netherlands Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC2002))2002document versionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordLink to publication in VU Research Portalcitation for published version (APA)Brazier, F. M. T., Overeinder, B. J., van Steen, M., & Wijngaards, N. J. E. (2002). Supporting Internet-ScaleMulti-Agent Systems. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth Belgium-Netherlands Conference on ArtificialIntelligence (BNAIC2002)) (pp. 501-502)General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright ownersand it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.            • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.            • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain            • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.E-mail address:vuresearchportal.ub@vu.nlDownload date: 27. May. 2021Supporting Internet-Scale Multi-Agent SystemsNiek Wijngaards Benno Overeinder Maarten van SteenFrances BrazierDept. of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije UniversiteitAmsterdam, de Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands{niek,bjo,steen,frances }@cs.vu.nlAlthough current research on agent systems focuses on relatively small-scale agentsystems, soon vast numbers of agents will be deployed in large-scale agent systems, e.g.on the Internet. Large-scale agent systems need to be extensible, heterogenous, interoper-able, and scalable. Scalability entails systems to scale (in terms of the number of agentsand available resources) almost immediately without noticeable loss of performance, orconsiderable increase in administrative complexity [1].In Data and Knowledge Engineering, 2002, 41(2-3): 229-245.AgentScapeThe overall design philosophy behind AgentScape is “less is more” and “one size doesnot fit all.” The AgentScape middleware provides minimal but sufficient support for agentapplications. In addition, the middleware is adaptive or reconfigurable such that it can betailored to specific applications or operating systems/hardware platforms.Agents and objects are basic entities in AgentScape. Agents are active entities inAgentScape that communicate with each other by message-passing. Objects are passiveentities that contain information and can be manipulated. AgentScape objects are Globeobjects [3] which have their own replication strategies to distribute their internal state.Basic services in AgentScape are naming and location services for agents, objects,and locations. These services enable agents to find and contact other agents or objects inthe distributed multi-agent system, and to migrate to other locations.Fig. 1 presents a model of AgentScape from the agent perspective, that is, the locationcomprising the middleware and the resources are represented by a location manager agentand resource objects. Calls from an agent to the middleware are modeled by requests tothe location manager agent to, for example, create an agent or move an agent. Informationabout resources residing at the location can be retrieved by binding to the resource objects,which arelocal distributed objects. These objects can be accessed only within the locationthey reside, not from outside the location.For development of agent applications, an application programming interface (API)and a runtime system (RTS) are provided, see Fig. 1. The default API and RTS can beextended to provide a higher-level application programming interface with, for example,a model that offers more structure and semantics to the agent application developer.Within AgentScape, management of large-scale agent systems is an important issue,including not only life-cycle management of agents, but also management of securityand authentication, middleware configuration, and resources. As centralized managementmechanisms are not applicable (scalability), other approaches need to be considered.(a) Location: Location Manager + Resources Location: Location Manager + ResourcesAgent + Interface(s) Agent + Interface(s)(b)- putMessage- moveMe- createAgentAgent specific interface implementation(can be simple proxy or wrapper routine):- killMe- kill- suspend- start_agentLocation Manager/Middleware interface:- create_agent- killMe- move- moveMe- createAgentAgent specific interface implementation- putMessage(can be simple proxy or wrapper routine):Agent + InterfaceLocation Manager/ Middleware- kill- move- suspend- start_agentLocation Manager/Middleware interface:- create_agentFigure 1: (a) The AgentScape model from an agent’s perspective. (b) The relation be-tween agent-specific interfaces vs the aos interface.DiscussionAgentScape addresses some important research issues regarding the realization of large-scale agent systems, such as scalability, language/platform independence, and interoper-ability. The AgentScape model effectively supports both Artificial Intelligence and Com-puter Systems research interests. From the AI point of view, AgentScape is an extensibleframework for the development of large-scale agent systems, such as more structuredmodels for agents’ environments. From the CS point of view, AgentScape provides anexperimental framework for studying of new approaches in large-scale agent systems,such as scalable directory services, security, and interaction models.Supporting large-scale agent systems involves solving numerous problems on boththe agent-level and the system-level [2]. In this research area, much progress may beachieved by cooperation between researchers from both the AI and CS communities.AcknowledgmentsThis work is supported by the NLnet Foundation, http://www.nlnet.nl/. The authors wishto acknowledge the contributions made by Andy Tanenbaum and Guido van ’t Noordende.References[1] B. Neuman. Scale in distributed systems. In T. Casavant and M. Singhal, editors,Readings in Distributed Computing Systems, pages 463–489. IEEE Computer SocietyPress, 1994.[2] A. S. Tanenbaum and M. van Steen.Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms.Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002.[3] M. van Steen, P. Homburg, and A. S. Tanenbaum. Globe: A wide-area distributedsystem.IEEE Concurrency, 7(1):70–78, January–March 1999.

English

Supporting Internet-Scale Multi-Agent Systems
Niek Wijngaards Benno Overeinder Maarten van Steen
Frances Brazier
Dept. of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
{niek,bjo,steen,frances}@cs.vu.nl
Although current research on agent systems focuses on relatively small-scale agent
systems, soon vast numbers of agents will be deployed in large-scale agent systems, e.g.
on the Internet. Large-scale agent systems need to be extensible, heterogenous, interoper-
able, and scalable. Scalability entails systems to scale (in terms of the number of agents
and available resources) almost immediately without noticeable loss of performance, or
considerable increase in administrative complexity [1].
In Data and Knowledge Engineering, 2002, 41(2-3): 229-245.
AgentScape
The overall design philosophy behind AgentScape is “less is more” and “one size does
not fit all.” The AgentScape middleware provides minimal but sufficient support for agent
applications. In addition, the middleware is adaptive or reconfigurable such that it can be
tailored to specific applications or operating systems/hardware platforms.
Agents and objects are basic entities in AgentScape. Agents are active entities in
AgentScape that communicate with each other by message-passing. Objects are passive
entities that contain information and can be manipulated. AgentScape objects are Globe
objects [3] which have their own replication strategies to distribute their internal state.
Basic services in AgentScape are naming and location services for agents, objects,
and locations. These services enable agents to find and contact other agents or objects in
the distributed multi-agent system, and to migrate to other locations.
Fig. 1 presents a model of AgentScape from the agent perspective, that is, the location
comprising the middleware and the resources are represented by a location manager agent
and resource objects. Calls from an agent to the middleware are modeled by requests to
the location manager agent to, for example, create an agent or move an agent. Information
about resources residing at the location can be retrieved by binding to the resource objects,
which are local distributed objects. These objects can be accessed only within the location
they reside, not from outside the location.
For development of agent applications, an application programming interface (API)
and a runtime system (RTS) are provided, see Fig. 1. The default API and RTS can be
extended to provide a higher-level application programming interface with, for example,
a model that offers more structure and semantics to the agent application developer.
Within AgentScape, management of large-scale agent systems is an important issue,
including not only life-cycle management of agents, but also management of security
and authentication, middleware configuration, and resources. As centralized management
mechanisms are not applicable (scalability), other approaches need to be considered.
(a) Location: Location Manager + Resources Location: Location Manager + Resources
Agent + Interface(s) Agent + Interface(s)
(b)
- putMessage
- moveMe
- createAgent
Agent specific interface implementation
(can be simple proxy or wrapper routine):
- killMe
- kill
- suspend
- start_agent
Location Manager/Middleware interface:
- create_agent
- killMe
- move
- moveMe
- createAgent
Agent specific interface implementation
- putMessage
(can be simple proxy or wrapper routine):
Agent + Interface
Location Manager/ Middleware
- kill
- move
- suspend
- start_agent
Location Manager/Middleware interface:
- create_agent
Figure 1: (a) The AgentScape model from an agent’s perspective. (b) The relation be-
tween agent-specific interfaces vs the aos interface.
Discussion
AgentScape addresses some important research issues regarding the realization of large-
scale agent systems, such as scalability, language/platform independence, and interoper-
ability. The AgentScape model effectively supports both Artificial Intelligence and Com-
puter Systems research interests. From the AI point of view, AgentScape is an extensible
framework for the development of large-scale agent systems, such as more structured
models for agents’ environments. From the CS point of view, AgentScape provides an
experimental framework for studying of new approaches in large-scale agent systems,
such as scalable directory services, security, and interaction models.
Supporting large-scale agent systems involves solving numerous problems on both
the agent-level and the system-level [2]. In this research area, much progress may be
achieved by cooperation between researchers from both the AI and CS communities.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the NLnet Foundation, http://www.nlnet.nl/. The authors wish
to acknowledge the contributions made by Andy Tanenbaum and Guido van ’t Noordende.
References
[1] B. Neuman. Scale in distributed systems. In T. Casavant and M. Singhal, editors,
Readings in Distributed Computing Systems, pages 463–489. IEEE Computer Society
Press, 1994.
[2] A. S. Tanenbaum and M. van Steen. Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms.
Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002.
[3] M. van Steen, P. Homburg, and A. S. Tanenbaum. Globe: A wide-area distributed
system. IEEE Concurrency, 7(1):70–78, January–March 1999.


The Internet provides a large-scale environment for (intelligent) software agents. Agents are autonomous (mobile) processes, capable of communication with other agents, interaction with the world, and adaptation to changes in their environment. Current approaches to support agents are not geared for large-scale settings. The near future holds thousands of agents, hosts, messages, and migratory movements of agents. These large-scale aspects require a new approach to facilitate the development of agent applications and support. AgentScape is a scalable agent-based distributed system, described in this paper, that aims at tackling these aspects. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

van Steen, M.R.

Brazier, F.M.

NARCIS 

Steen, M.R. van

The Internet provides a large-scale environment for (intelligent) software agents. Agents are autonomous (mobile) processes, capable of communication with other agents, interaction with the world, and adaptation to changes in their environment. Current approaches to support agents are not geared for large-scale settings. The near future holds thousands of agents, hosts, messages, and migratory movements of agents. These large-scale aspects require a new approach to facilitate the development of agent applications and support. AgentScape is a scalable agent-based distributed system described in this paper that aims at tackling these aspects. Key words: Large-scale agent systems, middleware, scalability, mobility, heterogeneity, interoperability

N. J. E. Wijngaards

B. J. Overeinder

M. Van Steen

F. M. T. Brazier

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Supporting Internet-Scale Multi-Agent Systems

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