Mobile agent messaging models

Abstract

It is not easy to make the decision of which messaging model to use in a mobile agent system. There are many different models to choose from and there are many forces influencing each model. We discuss five messaging models: Home-Proxy, Follower-Proxy, Email, Blackboard and Broadcast. We overview the forces that are the most important to all models and identify to what extent the forces influence the models. Our findings suggest that one should not use the Forwarder-Proxy model to build mobile agent systems. Instead, one should use the Blackboard approach, especially when agents require only anonymous messaging. In the case when anonymous messages cannot be used, your choice of model can be the Home-Proxy model, the Email model or the Broadcast model depending on which forces are more important to your application.