Assurance system architecture for information service by utilizing autonomous mobile agents

An information service system must be designed such that service providers (SPs) and users can supply and use the information service in a timely and reliable way, while each of the SPs has their own mission and each of the users has their own service preferences. Moreover, the mission and the user preferences change dynamically. As the network becomes larger, it may include the failure, maintenance and addition of nodes. An assurance system, called the FIF (Faded Information Field) system, is proposed to achieve real-time properties and reliability of the service provision and utilization under evolving situations. In FIF, push-type/pull-type mobile agents are generated for the SP and the user to autonomously allocate information to the nodes and to utilize the information at these nodes. The push-type mobile agent, originating at the SP, carries the SP's information to be autonomously allocated to the nodes, but the information gradually fades in the process of node-to-node movement. The fading part of the information is selected at the node on the basis of the user preferences. The more highly preferred information is replicated at more nodes on the network. The pull-type mobile agent, being sent out from the user, can autonomously search for the necessary information among the nodes. Then the user can reliably and timely obtain the preferred information at the local nodes in the FIF. The autonomous fading/navigating technologies make it possible to adapt to large and rapidly changing situations in the services without stopping the system and also to satisfy the assurance of information provision and utilization.