Cloud-Based Support for Transactional Mobile Agents

Mobile devices are now equipped with multiple sensors and networking capabilities. They can gather information about their surrounding environment and interact both with nearby nodes, using a dynamic and self-configurable ad-hoc network, and with distant nodes via the Internet. While the concept of mobile agent is appropriate to explore the ad-hoc network and autonomously discover service providers, it is not suitable for the implementation of strong distributed synchronization mechanisms. Moreover, the termination of a task assigned to an agent may be compromised if the persistence of the agent itself is not ensured. In the case of a transactional mobile agent, we identify two services, Availability of the Sources and Atomic Commit, that can be supplied by more powerful entities located in a cloud. We propose a solution where these two services are provided in a reliable and homogeneous way. To guarantee reliability, the proposed solution relies on a single agreement protocol that orders continuously all the new actions whatever the related transaction and service.