Application maintenance using software agents

Abstract

The benefits of software agents as a tool for helping in the maintenance process of a software application are shown. The goal of this research was to develop a group of intelligent agents that worked together to aid in software maintenance by automatically informing the appropriate individuals of any changes that were made to an open-source Internet software application. This type of application is suited for intelligent agents because the source code is accessed and modified by many users on the Internet, meaning that the application is under constant change. The methodology of completion for this research can be subdivided into four categories: interface agent algorithm development, implementation using Visual C++, multi-agent system development, and testing. The overall goal is accomplished using a network of four agents each having a specific task; one to monitor the code base (Monitor Agent), one to determine the impact of any software changes (Impact Agent), one to search for pertinent documentation (Search Agent), and finally one to e-mail the appropriate software maintainer (E-mail Agent). The final stage in reaching the objectives of this research is the design of a multi-agent system in which the agents will interact with each other using an agent communication language to autonomously maintain the software application.