Coordinating multiagent applications on the WWW: a reference architecture

Author

Ciancarini, Paolo ; Tolksdorf, Robert ; Vitali, Fabio ; Rossi, Davide ; Knoche, Andreas

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Bologna Univ., Italy

Volume

24

Issue

5

fYear

1998

fDate

5/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

362

Lastpage

375

Abstract

The original Web did not support multiuser, interactive applications. This shortcoming is being studied, and several approaches have been proposed to use the Web as a platform for programming Internet applications. However, most existing approaches are oriented to centralized applications at servers, or local programs within clients. To overcome this deficit, we introduce PageSpace, that is a reference architecture for designing interactive multiagent applications. We describe how we control agents in PageSpace, using variants of the coordination language Linda to guide their interactions. Coordination technology is integrated with the standard Web technology and the programming language Java. Several kinds of agents live in the PageSpace: user interface agents, personal homeagents, agents that implement applications, and agents which interoperate with legacy systems. Within our architecture, it is possible to support fault-tolerance and mobile agents as well

Keywords

Internet; client-server systems; cooperative systems; interactive systems; object-oriented languages; open systems; parallel languages; software agents; software fault tolerance; user interfaces; Internet applications; Java; Linda; PageSpace; World Wide Web; centralized applications; client server systems; coordination language; coordination technology; fault tolerance; legacy systems; mobile agents; multiagent application coordination; multiuser interactive applications; open distributed systems; personal homeagents; programming; reference architecture; user interface agents; Application software; Computer Society; Computer architecture; Computer languages; Electronic commerce; Internet; Java; Service oriented architecture; Web server; World Wide Web;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.685259

Filename

685259