Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Autonomic communication services: a new challenge for software agents

  • Published:
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The continuous growth in ubiquitous and mobile network connectivity, together with the increasing number of networked devices populating our everyday environments, call for a deep rethinking of traditional communication and service architectures. The emerging area of autonomic communication addresses such challenging issues by trying to identify novel flexible network architectures, and by conceiving novel conceptual and practical tools for the design, development, and execution of “autonomic” (i.e., self-organizing, self-adaptive and context-aware) communication services. In this paper, after having introduced the general concepts behind autonomic communication and autonomic communication services, we analyze the key issue of defining suitable “component” models for autonomic communication services, and discuss the strict relation between such models and agent models. On this basis, we survey and compare different approaches, and eventually try to synthesize the key desirable characteristics that one should expect from a general-purpose component model for autonomic communication services. The key message we will try to deliver is that current research in software agents and multi-agent systems have the potential for playing a major role in inspiring and driving the identification of such a model, and more in general for influencing and advancing the whole area of autonomic communication.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ando, Y., Fukazawa, Y., Masutani, O., Iwasaki, H., & Honiden, S. (2005). Performance of pheromone model for predicting traffic congestion. In 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 73–80). Japan, 2005.

  2. Arcos J.L., Esteva M., Noriega P., Rodriguez J.A. and Sierra C. (2005). Engineering open environments with electronic institutions. Journal on Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 18(2): 191–204

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Babaoglu O., Canright G., Deutsch A., Di Caro G., Ducatelle F., Gambardella L., Ganguly N., Jelasity M., Montemanni R., Montresor A. and Urnes T. (2006). Design patterns from biology for distributed computing. ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, 1(1): 26–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Baresi, L., Baumgarten, M., Mulvenna, M., Nugent, C., Curran, K., & Deussen, P. H. (2006). Towards pervasive supervision for autonomic systems. In 1st IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligence Systems (pp. 365–370). Czech Republic, 2006.

  5. Baumgarten, M., Bicocchi, N., Curran, K., Mamei, M., Zambonelli, F., & Mulvenna, M. (2006). Towards self-organizing knowledge networks for smart world infrastructures. In 2nd International Conference on Self-organization in Multi-Agent and Grid Systems. Germany, 2006.

  6. Bellifemine, F., Poggi, A., & Rimassa, G. (2001). JADE—A FIPA2000 compliant agent development environment. In 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents (pp. 216–217). Canada, 2001.

  7. Bonabeau E., Dorigo M. and Theraulaz G. (1999). Swarm intelligence: From natural to artificial systems. Oxford University Press, USA

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Booth, D., Haas, H., McCabe, F., Newcomer, E., Champion, M. Ferris, C., & Orchard, D. (2004). Web services architecture. World Wide Web Consortium.

  9. Brueckner, S., Parunak, V., & Savit, T. (2004). Universality in multi-agent systems. In 3rd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 930–937). USA, 2004.

  10. Castelli, G., Rosi, A., Mamei, M., Zambonelli, F. (2007). A simple model and infrastructure for context-aware browsing of the world. In 5th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (pp. 229–238). USA, 2007.

  11. Contizer M., Sandholm V., Ohta T. and Iwasaki N. (2005). Coalitional games in open anonymous environments. International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 19: 1668–1669

    Google Scholar 

  12. Di Caro, G., & Dorigo, M. (1998). Ant colonies for adaptive routing in packet switched communication networks. In 5th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, LNCS (Vol. 1498, pp. 673–682). Springer Verlag.

  13. DIET Agents project: http://diet-agents.sourceforge.net/index.html, Accessed March 18, 2008.

  14. Dill S., Kumar R., Mccurley K., Rajagopalan S., Sivakumar D. and Tomkins A. (2003). Self-Similarity in the Web. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 2(3): 205–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Dobson, S. (2004). Putting meaning into the network: some semantic issues for the design of autonomic communications systems. In 1st IFIP Workshop on Autonomic Communications, LNCS (Vol. 3457, pp. 207–216). Springer Verlag.

  16. Dobson S., Denaziz S., Fernandez A., Gaiti D., Gelenbe E., Massacci F., Nixon P., Saffre F., Schmidt N. and Zambonelli F. (2007). A survey of autonomic communication. ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, 1(3): 223–259

    Google Scholar 

  17. Estrin D., Culler D., Pister K. and Sukjatme G. (2002). Connecting the physical world with pervasive networks. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 1(1): 59–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Fisher, K. (1999). Holonic multi-agent systems—theory and applications. In 9th Portuguese Conference on Progress in Artificial Intelligence, LNAI (Vol. 1695, pp. 34–48). Springer.

  19. Giret, A., & Botti, V. (2004). Holons and agents. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 15, 645–659, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Haegg, S. (1996). A sentinel approach to fault handling in multi-agent systems. In 2nd Australian Workshop on Distributed Artificial Intelligence (pp. 181–195). Australia, 1996.

  21. He M., Jennings N.R. and Leung H. (2003). On agent-mediated electronic commerce. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 15(4): 985–1003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Hightower J. and Borriello G. (2001). Location systems for ubiquitous computing. IEEE Computer, 34(8): 57–66

    Google Scholar 

  23. Holland O. and Melhuis C. (1999). Stigmergy, self-organization and sorting in collective robotics. Artificial Life, 5(2): 173–202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Huhns M. and Singh M.P. (2005). Service-oriented computing: Key concepts and principles. IEEE Internet Computing, 9(1): 75–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. IBM (2001). Autonomic computing: IBM’s perspective on the state of information technology.

  26. Jennings N.R. (2001). An agent-based approach for building complex software systems. Communications of the ACM, 44(4): 35–41

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  27. Keil, D., & Goldin, D. (2005). Indirect interaction in environments for multi-agent systems. In 2nd International Workshop on Environments for Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 68–87). The Netherlands.

  28. Kephart J. and Chess D.M. (2003). The vision of autonomic computing. IEEE Computer, 36(1): 41–50

    Google Scholar 

  29. Kraus, S., Shehory, O., & Taase, G. (2003). Coalition Formation with Uncertain Heterogeneous Information. In 2nd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 1–8). Australia.

  30. Mamei M., Menezes R., Tolksdorf R. and Zambonelli F. (2006). Case Studies for Self-organization in Computer Science. Journal of Systems Architecture, 52(8–9): 443–460

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Mamei M., Roli A. and Zambonelli F. (2005). Emergence and control of macro spatial structures in perturbed cellular automata, and its implications for pervasive computing systems. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 35(5): 337–348

    Google Scholar 

  32. Mamei, M., & Zambonelli, F. (2004). Programming pervasive and mobile computing applications with the TOTA middleware. In 2nd IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (p. 263). Florida, USA, 2004.

  33. Manzalini, A., & Zambonelli, F. (2006). Towards autonomic and situation-aware communication services: The CASCADAS vision. In 1st IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems (pp. 383–388). Czech Republic, 2006.

  34. Marrón P.J., Minder D., Lachenmann A. and Rothermel K. (2005). TinyCubus: An adaptive cross-layer framework for sensor networks. Information Technology, 47(2): 87–97

    Google Scholar 

  35. Martino, S. (1999). A mobile agent approach to intrusion detection. Technical Report, Joint Research Center - Institute for Systems, Informatics and Safety.

  36. Nick, J., Foster, I., Kesselmann, C., & Tuecke, S. (2002). The physiology of the grid: An open grid services architecture for distributed systems integration. Open Grid Service Infrastructure WG, Global Grid Forum.

  37. Noriega, P., & Sierra, C. (2002). Electronic institutions: Future trends and challenges. In Cooperative Information Agents VI, LNCS (Vol. 2446, pp. 14–17). Springer Verlag.

  38. Omicini A. and Zambonelli F. (1999). Coordination for internet application development. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 2(3): 251–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Parunak H.V.D. (1997). Go to the ant: Engineering principles from natural multi-agent systems. Annals of Operations Research, 75: 69–101

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  40. Pentland A. (2005). Socially aware computation and communication. IEEE Computer, 38(3): 33–40

    Google Scholar 

  41. Platon E., Mamei M., Sabouret N., Honiden S. and Parunak H.V.D. (2007). Mechanisms for environments in multi-agent systems: Survey and opportunities. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 14(1): 31–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Quitadamo, R., Zambonelli, F., & Cabri, G. (2007). The service ecosystem: Dynamic self-aggregation of pervasive communication services. In 1st Workshop on Software Engineering of Pervasive Computing Applications, Systems and Environments (SEPCASE) at ICSE 2007. Minneapolis, MN, USA, May 2007.

  43. Rao, A., & Georgeff, M. (1995). BDI agents: From theory to practice. In 1st International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 312–319). California.

  44. Ricci, A., Omicini, A., & Denti, E. (2003). Activity theory as a framework for MAS coordination. Engineering Societies in the Agents’ World III, LNCS (Vol. 2577, pp. 96–110). Springer Verlag.

  45. Scott, J., Hui, P., Crowcroft, J., & Diot, C. (2006). Haggle: A networking architecture designed around mobile users. In 3rd Annual IFIP Conference on Wireless On-demand Network Systems and Services, Les Menuires (F), January 2006.

  46. Sestini F. (2006). Situated and autonomic communications: An EC FET European initiative. ACM Computer Communications Review, 36(2): 14–17

    Google Scholar 

  47. Shehory, O., & Aknine, S. (2006). A feasible and practical coalition formation mechanism leveraging compromise and task relationships. In IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (pp. 436–439).

  48. The Autonomic Communication Forum. http://www.autonomic-communication-forum.org/. Accessed March 18 2008.

  49. The CASCADAS Project Web Site. http://www.cascadas-project.org. Accessed March 18, 2008.

  50. Tummolini, L., Castelfranchi, C., Ricci, A., Viroli, M., & Omicini, A. (2005). Exhibitionists and voyeurs do it better: A shared environment approach for flexible coordination with tacit messages. Environments for Multi-Agent Systems, LNAI (Vol. 3374, pp. 215–231). Springer Verlag.

  51. Valckenaers P., Sauter J., Sierra C. and Rodriguez-Aguilar J.A. (2007). Applications and environments for multi-agent systems. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 14(1): 61–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Viroli M., Holvoet T., Ricci A., Schelfthout K. and Zambonelli F. (2007). Infrastructures for the environment of multi-agent systems. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 14(1): 49–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Want R. (2006). An introduction to RFID technology. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 5(1): 25–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Weyns D., Omicini A. and Odell J. (2007). Environment as a first class abstraction in multiagent systems. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 14(1): 5–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Wooldridge M. (1997). Agent-based software engineering. IEEE Proceedings Software Engineering, 144(1): 26–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Yolum P. and Singh M. (2005). Engineering self-organizing referral networks for trustworthy service selection. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 36(5): 396–407

    Google Scholar 

  57. Zambonelli F. (2006). Self-management and the many facets of nonself. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(2): 50–58

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Zambonelli F., Jennings N. and Wooldridge M. (2003). Developing multi-agent systems: The Gaia methodology. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 12(3): 317–370

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Italy

    Raffaele Quitadamo

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze e Metodi dell’Ingegneria, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Italy

    Franco Zambonelli

Authors
  1. Raffaele Quitadamo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Franco Zambonelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raffaele Quitadamo.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Quitadamo, R., Zambonelli, F. Autonomic communication services: a new challenge for software agents. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 17, 457–475 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-008-9054-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-008-9054-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation