Adaptive protocols for agent migration

Abstract

A framework for building adaptive network protocols for agent migration over a network is presented. A key idea of the framework is to introduce mobile agents as first-class objects. That is, the framework allows network protocols for agent migration to be naturally implemented within mobile agents and then dynamically deployed at network nodes by migrating the agents that carry the protocols. A prototype implementation was built on a hierarchical mobile agent system, and several practical protocols for agent migration were designed and implemented. These protocols can have significant contributions to active network technology as well as mobile agent technology.