Towards a Layered Approach for Agent Infrastructure: The Right Tools for the Right Job
Ronald Ashri, G. Flucke · 2001
It is clear by now that the take-up of agent technologies and the wide use of such technologies in open environments depends on the provision of appropriate infrastructure to support the rapid development of applications. In this paper, we argue that the elements required for the development of infrastructure span three different fields, which, nevertheless, have a great degree of overlap. Middleware technologies, mobile agent and intelligent agent research all have significant contributions to make towards a holistic approach to infrastructure development, but it is necessary to make clear distinctions between the requirements at each level and explain how they can be integrated so as to provide a clearer focus and allow the use of existing technologies. Our view of the requirements for infrastructure to support agent-based systems has been formed through experience with developing an agent implementation environment based on a formal agent framework. We argue that in order to provide support to developers, this infrastructure must address both conceptual concerns relating the different types of entities, and relationships between agent and non-agent entities in the environment, as well as more technical concerns. This paper describes the general requirements for infrastructure, the specific contributions from different areas, and our own efforts in progressing towards them. 1.