DAgents: A MobileAgent

1
DAgents A Mobile-Agent System
(URL http//agent.cs.dartmouth.edu/, Contact
robert.s.gray_at_dartmouth.edu)
Why mobile agents? Examine Phone-call monitoring
What is a mobile agent?

• Most general form of mobile code
• Process that migrates under its own control from
  machine to machine

New phone calls
First name
Bob
Identity Database
Last name
Gray
Phone Call Database
3. Agent jumps to phone machine.
Weight
140
Search engine
Height
58
...
2. Agent gets names.
Machine A
Machine B
Agent gets name list and starts the phone-call
query without interaction with analysts machine.
4. Agent gets calls with right time/ region and
uses name list to score them.

• DAgents
• Dartmouths mobile-agent system
• Multiple agent languages
• Tcl
• Java
• Scheme
• Protection against malicious agents
• Many support services (directory, nagivation,
  debugging, etc.)

1. Agent jumps to identity machine with query.
5. Agent sends calls back to analyst.
Agent sends back only those phone calls with a
high score.
How efficient are mobile agents? Download
documents and filter locally (client/server) vs.
send mobile agent and filter on the database
machine (DAgents)

• Lessons Learned
• Multiple languages extremely useful
• Mobile code/agents can outperform client/server
  in many applications
• but significant system engineering is required.