Three-layer Internet Computing Model with Mobile Agents

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Three-layerInternet Computing Model withMobile
Agents
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Motivation

• Problems with current Internet service model from
  users perspective
• Low efficiency data and service searching
• information are not well organized and
  categorized
• data format are not standardized
• Location-identified data and services
• IP and directory address required for service
  access
• multi sign-on and register for users
• Non-customized data presentation
• data multiplexing and filtering is rare
• capabilities of different terminals are not
  considered in data transfer

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Objective

• To build a 3-layer information gathering and
  distribution model for efficient internet
  information exchange
• service layer
• deals with how data are stored
• database servers store service data
• exchange layer
• deals with how data are located and accessed
• service agents, personal agents, directory
  service, agent manager
• support management and data exchange between PAs
  and SAs
• user terminal layer
• deals with how data are presented
• provide user interaction with his personal agent

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Service 1 DB
Service 2 DB
Service 3 DB
Service 4 DB
Service Providers
Service Agents
Service Agents
Cyber Space
Directory Service
Directory Service
Cyber Town 1
Cyber Town 2
Personal Agents
Personal Agents
User Terminals
Users
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Service layer

• Most service activities can be classified as
  database operations
• fetching web pages, download codes, update user
  information, etc.
• Service layer supports service data
  representation, retrieval and modification in a
  standard way in databases.
• Service data are provided by individual service
  providers
• Service data are stored on the databases of each
  individual service provider according to a
  standard format
• table, field names and content format should be
  standardized
• integration of text, sound/image, code and other
  data into the database

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Exchange layer

• Exchange layer provides support for service
  providers and service users to locate each other
  and exchange information
• Consists of high performance machines connecting
  to the backbone of the network - Cyber Space
• Each machine in the Cyber Space is a Cyber Town
• Cyber Towns are weakly connected
• each Cyber Town is managed by an Agent Manager
• Agent Managers cooperate with each other to
  provide resource control and load balancing
• PAs, SAs, directory service are running in each
  Cyber Town

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Exchange layer

• Cyber Town Components
• Agent Manager
• manages the agents in a Cyber Town
• Agents
• software programs representing service providers
  and service consumers
• a Cyber Town can have a large number of agents
• Directory Service
• for agents to register their interests and
  capabilities.

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Agents

• Agents are software applications running in Cyber
  Towns for data and information exchange between
  service providers and service consumers
• Two types of agents
• personal agents
• created by and belong to a certain user storing
  users profile and preference
• interact with service agents on the users
  behalf
• provide data multiplexing and filtering
• service agents
• created by and belong to service providers
• process data on the request of other agents
• provide access to the databases of service
  providers

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Agent Behaviors

• Adaptive Learning
• agents get information about the environment
• agent are able to adapt their behaviors based on
  the past experience
• Basic Behaviors
• functional orientation
• replication
• energy consumption
• Extended Behaviors
• migration
• symbiosis
• repulsion
• cooperation

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Directory Service

• Directory Service supports the storing and
  retrieval of agent information in each Cyber Town
• categorized
• data are categorized
• data organized in hierarchical structure(
  logically)
• standard data format
• define standard categories for data exchange
• define standard names for common entries , such
  as Last Name, First Name
• Two types of information
• information are exposed by agents themselves
  regarding their service capability and interests
• management and statistical information generated
  by agent manager

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Directory Service

• The access right to each entry in the directory
  service are defined by its owner
• Directory Services on different Cyber Towns
  cooperate with each other
• information sharing and caching
• support chaining of searching requests
• search referral
• redirect searching request to other cyber towns
• automatic update and consistency maintenance
• Directory services on different Cyber Towns are
  loosely organized into a hierarchical structure

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Agent Manager

• To manager the execution of agents in each Cyber
  Town
• controls resource allocation
• CPU, Memory, Disk Space, Network Bandwidth
• The privilege of agents are determined by their
  energy levels.
• supports load balancing
• cooperates with Agent managers to achieve load
  balancing
• Agent manager uses energy to control the resource
  allocation

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User Terminal Layer

• User terminals
• PC, laptop, cell phone, PDA, etc
• provide user access to his personal agent

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Internet
High-speed Connection
High performance Machine
Low-speed Connection
User PCs and other terminals
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Technical Challenge

• A uniformed category for describing data
• A database architecture for storing standardized,
  categorized data
• A distributed directory service to store service
  descriptions using the standard category
• LODS
• An agent running environment that can manage the
  execution and resource allocation of large number
  of agents
• Agents with self-adaptive behaviors and learning
  ability

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Online Shopping withPersonal Agent

• The user use terminal to authenticate with his PA
  on the cyber town
• After login, PA sends the user his personalized
  web page including
• summaries and links to the web pages the user
  frequently visit.
• the latest news the user is interested in from
  several different media sources, such as CNN,
  ABC.
• The local weather and traffic condition report

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Online Shopping withPersonal Agent

• After reading a report saying that the price of
  laptop dropped recently, the user decides to buy
  a laptop.
• User outlines the desired configuration of the
  laptop
• CPU PIII 600
• RAM 128MB
• Hard Drive 13.5GB
• The user want to find the best deal, in term of
  price, from as many online computer stores as
  possible with the above configuration.
• The user clicks on search icon on his web page,
  selects shopping/computer/hardware category,
  fill out his desired configuration and press the
  search button.

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Online Shopping withPersonal Agent

• PA connects to each online computer stores that
  it knows, presents the user specifications, and
  pulls back the price information, along with
  other detailed info.
• After getting replies from all the stores, PA
  will cut unwanted information from the replies,
  sort the replies in price, and present it to the
  user in a customized layout.
• When the user decides to make the purchase from a
  certain store, PA will contact that store,
  provide user information and finish the
  transaction.

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Personal Agent Searching

• After receiving this information, PA starts the
  searching
• PA first check with the directory service to get
  the service agent of these computer stores
• PA connects to the service agent of each store,
  presents the user specification, user information
  (location, membership, etc.) and pulls back the
  price ( including tax, SH and discounts) along
  with other detailed info.
• After getting replies from the stores, PA will
  cut unwanted information from the replies, sort
  the replies in price, and present it to the user
  in a customized layout.

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Settle the Payment

• When the user decides to make the purchase from a
  certain store, PA contacts the corresponding
  service agent to finalize the purchase
• PA ask the service agent for Merchant ID (MID)
• PA identify itself with the users credit card
  issuer to allow billing to the account from the
  specified MID with the specified amount and get
  an Conformation ID (CID)
• probably need users password
• PA gives the CID to the service agent along with
  the users credit card number and the address of
  the credit card
• The service agent of the store contacts the card
  issuer with the CID and gets the conformation
• The service agent gives PA a message, indicating
  the payment is set

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Track the Shipping with Personal Agent

• The user can then require the PA to track the
  shipping status of the laptop
• The shipping status can be automatically queried
  by the PA, the information will be updated on the
  users web page, or sent to the users email
  account, etc.

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Service Agent

• A small online computer store OCS creates a
  service gateway agent - OCS Agent
• the OCS Agent has the following service functions
• to register the computer store and the type of
  product OCS can provide with the directory
  service
• such as computer/hardware, computer/software,
  etc.
• to open a connection to the stores database to
  process queries and return the results
• to cache frequently used query results
• PCs with PIII CPU are frequently queried model,
  cache information on these PCs
• to process user purchase orders

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Create and Deploy a Service Agent

• OCS specifies the type of behaviors the OCS Agent
  can have to make it survive in the Cyber Space
• replication migration
• symbiosis cooperation
• repulsion combination
• split
• The OCS Agent will be given a certain amount of
  energy.
• The OCS initially deploy the OCS Agent in a
  certain Cyber Town with a large amount of user
  agents.
• The OCS carefully select the cyber town to let
  OCS Agent survive

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Activate the Service

• OCS Agent it register its service with the
  directory service of the cyber town it arrives
• Sell/Computer/Hardware,
• As the OCS Agent are available in the Cyber
  Town, many user agents begin to query OCS Agent
  about the produces,
• such as what is the price for a PIII 600 CPU?
• The OCS Agent returns the result after query the
  OCS database
• the request may come from user agent in other
  cyber towns
• Suppose the products of OCS is very cheap, and
  shipped fast, many users buy from OCS Agent and
  it starts to accumulate energy ( real currency)

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Some Behaviors of the Service Agent

• OCS Agent intends to live on cyber towns with
  agents from software vendors - Symbiosis
• as software agent will also find it will benefit
  from residing on a cyber town with hardware
  agents
• The OCS Agent will need the service agents from
  UPS, Fedex, etc., to get shipping costs, and
  realize it is important to maintain a close
  Cooperation
• The OCS Agent finds out that user usually buy
  either the complete system or individual parts.
• To better serve these different users, OCS Agent
  divides itself into two agents - Split
• OCS agent can not compete with the price of the
  competing agent form DOCS, it will avoid to be in
  the same cyber town as this agent- Repulsion

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Observations from the Scenario

• Network is the database
• finding the right (amount of) information as soon
  as possible is the most critical task.
• provide standard, structured information on the
  internet will be to the interest of everyone
• XML is on this direction
• The 3-layer model provides a good way for the
  separation of content and presentation
• service provider can focus on content
• user can use customized viewer to read the
  content
• most online stores can save a lot of efforts from
  writing their web pages

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Observations from the Scenario

• 3-layer model pushes for consumer-oriented
  service
• web addresses become meaningless to the user, as
  web sites are only directly contacted by his PA
• the service provide has to actively push his
  service information to the users PA
• building a web site and waiting for users to
  visit will not work any more
• the service provider has to send his Service
  Agents to the cyber space, register with each
  cyber town to let the PAs know the service.
• the competition among service providers will be
  more fair, as competing services can be known by
  all the PAs and be compared side by side.

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Why Personal Agent

• To provide consumer-oriented location transparent
  service
• current services are provider-oriented
• the user has to know both WHERE to find the
  service and WHAT he needs
• In consumer-oriented environment
• the user only specifies only WHAT he needs
• the personal agent will gather the product or
  service information based on the specification
• To Increase the performance of information
  gathering and distribution
• code mobility will be really valuable

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Goals to Achieve with the Model

• Local data access
• Personal Agent is closer (in term of access
  speed) to other web sites than the users
  terminal
• Personal Agent can move closer to the users
  terminal within Cyber Space
• Service customization
• PA represents the information in the format the
  user specifies
• PA can combine information from different sources
  
• unwanted/unrelated information can be peeled off
  by PA before sending to user

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Goals to Achieve with the Model

• Autonomy
• PA executes the users instructions
• PA can update information routinely without user
  involvement
• load balancing
• PA can be forced to migrate for better resource
  sharing
• dynamic function extension
• PA has to use other agents to complete tasks