AgentSys: a mobile agent system for digital media access and interaction on an Internet

Abstract

Mobile agents have emerged as a new computing alternative a nd are proving to b e more flexible and d ynamic than the c lassical client-server model. In the mobile a gent model the program is s ent t o and runs on the remote site, thereby operating closer to and more interactively with the remote document resource. AgentSys is a mobile agent system that implements the protocols necessary to allow agents to autonomously roam upon a network of digital resources, collect information intermittently, and return to the user with results. While the burden on the user to search out and negotiate for data is reduced, AgentSys requires protocols at several l evels. This paper proposes (i) an agent-stack to enable a n Internet- based mobile agent system, (ii) the protocols necessary for agent communications, and (iii) a profound new w ay of thinking of documents within the mobile agent paradigm.