Reusable mobile agents for cluster computing

Adopting mobile agent technology can eliminate the need for the administrator to manage clusters, e.g., installation and upgrading software, and auditing clusters and networks. However, creating mobile agent-based network management systems is still in an ad-hoc manner but not methodologies for building mobile agents for cluster and grid computing. This paper presents a framework for reusable mobile agents for managing clusters in the sense that they are independent of either particular cluster systems or applications. The framework enables a mobile agent to be composed of two layered components, which are mobile agents. The first is a carrier for the second over particular networks independent of any management tasks and the latter defines management tasks performed at each host, independently of any networks. The framework also offers a mechanism for matchmaking the two components. Since the mechanism has been formulated based on a process algebra approach, it can precisely select a suitable itinerary component to do management tasks at the hosts that the tasks want to visit over networks. The framework provides a methodology for easily developing and operating mobile agents to travel among multiple clusters to conduct their management tasks at each of the clusters they visit.