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COMMON INTRODUCTION
GYPSY
Common Introduction
Overview
Mobile agents are programs with persistent identity which move around a network on their own volition and can communicate with their environment and with other agents. These systems use specialized servers to interpret the agent's behavior and communicate with other servers. Mobile agents may execute on any machine in a network without the necessity of having the agent code pre-installed on every machine the agent could visit. Mobile agents represent a new model in the evolution of executable content on the Internet, introducing program code that can be transported along with state information.
Intended Application Areas
Internet information retrieval can be supported more efficiently if an
agent representing a query can move to the place where the data are actually
stored, rather than moving all of the data through the network and search for
the desired information.
Internet commerce is becoming a reality as standards for electronic payment are deployed. Mobile agents can help to locate the most appropriate offerings, negotiate deals or even conclude business transactions on behalf of their owners.
Mobile computing is another interesting field for mobile agents. Portable computers get smaller and smaller, but the wireless access to the services is likely to stay slow. Users will not want to stay online while some complicated query is handled on behalf of the user (power consumption, connection fees). Users can submit a mobile agent which embodies their queries and log off, waiting for the agents and the results to be picked up at a later time.
Due to the growth of networks network management is another field for
mobile agents. In large networks, monitoring and fault detection is very
difficult and involves large amounts of logging data. It is not possible
to produce out-of-the-box diagnostic programs for every purpose, but it
would be possible to use mobile agents to monitor the system and bring
possible trouble spots to the attention of the system maintainer.