A Survey of Fault Tolerance Techniques in Mobile Agents and Mobile Agent Systems

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farzana Yousuf ◽  
Zahid Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Fault Tolerance ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems

Modeling Fault Tolerant and Secure Mobile Agent Execution in Distributed Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 132-146
Author(s):  
H. Hamidi
Keyword(s):  
Fault Tolerance ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Fault Tolerant ◽  
Secret Key ◽  
New Host ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Authentication Mechanism ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
Distributed Transaction

The reliable execution of mobile agents is a very important design issue in building mobile agent systems and many fault-tolerant schemes have been proposed so far. Security is a major problem of mobile agent systems, especially when monetary transactions are concerned. Security for the partners involved is handled by encryption methods based on a public key authentication mechanism and by secret key encryption of the communication. To achieve fault tolerance for the agent system, especially for the agent transfer to a new host, we use distributed transaction processing. We propose a fault-tolerant approach for mobile agents design which offers a user transparent fault tolerance that can be activated on request, according to the needs of the task. We also discuss how transactional agents with different types of commitment constraints can commit transactions. Furthermore, we present a solution for effective agent deployment using dynamic agent domains.

Component Agent Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
Paulo Marques
Keyword(s):  
Technology Adoption ◽  
Network Management ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Agent Platform ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
The Future

One central problem preventing widespread adoption of mobile agents as a code structuring primitive is that current mainstream middleware implementations do not convey it simply as such. In fact, they force all the development to be centered on mobile agents, which has serious consequences in terms of software structuring and, in fact, technology adoption. This chapter discusses the main limitations of the traditional platform-based approach, proposing an alternative: component-based mobile agent systems. Two case studies are discussed: the JAMES platform, a traditional mobile agent platform specially tailored for network management, and M&M, a component-based system for agent-enabling applications. Finally, a bird’s eye perspective on the last 15 years of mobile agent systems research is presented along with an outlook on the future of the technology. The authors hope that this chapter brings some enlightenment on the pearls and pitfalls surrounding this interesting technology and ways for avoiding them in the future.

Component Agent Systems

2009 ◽  
pp. 3300-3319
Author(s):  
Paulo Marques ◽  
Luís Silva
Keyword(s):  
Technology Adoption ◽  
Network Management ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Agent Platform ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
The Future

One central problem preventing widespread adoption of mobile agents as a code structuring primitive is that current mainstream middleware implementations do not convey it simply as such. In fact, they force all the development to be centered on mobile agents, which has serious consequences in terms of software structuring and, in fact, technology adoption. This chapter discusses the main limitations of the traditional platform-based approach, proposing an alternative: component-based mobile agent systems. Two case studies are discussed: the JAMES platform, a traditional mobile agent platform specially tailored for network management, and M&M, a component-based system for agent-enabling applications. Finally, a bird’s eye perspective on the last 15 years of mobile agent systems research is presented along with an outlook on the future of the technology. The authors hope that this chapter brings some enlightenment on the pearls and pitfalls surrounding this interesting technology and ways for avoiding them in the future.

Embeddable Mobile-C for Runtime Support of Code Mobility in Multi-Agent Systems

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Cheng Chou ◽  
David Ko ◽  
Harry H. Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Operating Systems ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Distributed Applications ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Platform ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Code Mobility ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent

Agent technology is emerging as an important concept for the development of distributed complex systems. A number of mobile agent systems have been developed in the last decade. However, most of them were developed to support only Java mobile agents. Furthermore, many of them are standalone platforms. In other words, they were not designed to be embedded in a user application to support the code mobility. In order to provide distributed applications with the code mobility, this article presents a mobile agent library, the Mobile-C library. The Mobile-C library is supported by various operating systems including Windows, Unix, and real-time operating systems. It has a small footprint to meet the stringent memory capacity for a variety of mechatronic and embedded systems. This library allows a Mobile-C agency, a mobile agent platform, to be embedded in a program to support C/C++ mobile agents. Functions in this library facilitate the development of a multi-agent system that can easily interface with a variety of hardware devices.

A Secure Migration Protocol for Mobile Agent Systems

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Najmus Saqib Malik ◽  
David Ko ◽  
Harry H. Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Migration Process ◽  
Agent Platform ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
Automation Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Secure Shell

This paper describes a secure migration process of mobile agents between agencies. Mobile-C is an IEEE Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) standard compliant multi-agent platform for supporting C/C++ mobile and stationary agents. This secure migration process is inspired from Secure Shell (SSH). Before migration, both agencies authenticate each other using public key authentication. After successful authentication, an encrypted mobile agent is transferred and its integrity is verified. Mobile-C is specially designed for mechatronic and factory automation systems where, for correct system operations, agencies must accept mobile agents from trusted agencies. For this reason, the emphasis is on strong authentication of both agencies involved in migration process. Security aspects of other popular mobile agent systems are described briefly. A comparison study with SSH protocol is performed and future work is elaborated.

Securing Mobile-Agent Systems through Collaboration

2010 ◽  
pp. 154-180
Author(s):  
Mohammed Hussain ◽  
David B. Skillicorn
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Telecommunication Networks ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
System Calls ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
Privacy Attack ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

Mobile agents are self-contained programs that migrate among computing devices to achieve tasks on behalf of users. Autonomous and mobile agents make it easier to develop complex distributed systems. Many applications can benefit greatly from employing mobile agents, especially e-commerce. For instance, mobile agents can travel from one e-shop to another, collecting offers based on customers’ preferences. Mobile agents have been used to develop systems for telecommunication networks, monitoring, information retrieval, and parallel computing. Characteristics of mobile agents, however, introduce new security issues which require carefully designed solutions. On the one hand, malicious agents may violate privacy, attack integrity, and monopolize hosts’ resources. On the other hand, malicious hosts may manipulate agents’ memory, return wrong results from system calls, and deny access to necessary resources. This has motivated research focused on devising techniques to address the security of mobile-agent systems. This chapter surveys the techniques securing mobile-agent systems. The survey categorizes the techniques based on the degree of collaboration used to achieve security. This categorization resembles the difference between this chapter and other surveys in the literature where categorization is on the basis of entities/ parts protected and underlying methodologies used for protection. This survey shows the importance of collaboration in enhancing security and discusses its implications and challenges.

Mobile Agents and Security

2011 ◽  
pp. 457-462
Author(s):  
Fei Xue
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Computing ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Computer Software ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
Software And Hardware

As an emerging technology, mobile agents can facilitate distributed computing applications over computer networks. During the past decade, the advance of computer software and hardware has led the structure and logic of mobile agents to become increasingly sophisticated. As a consequence, some security threats have started to appear in mobile agent systems (MASs).

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