Framework for Identifying Agent's Role in Multi-agent Based Self-healing System

Concept of self-healing, as a paradigm of software that being capable to restore itself when damage is occurred, had been introduced and studied for several years. Many models and concepts has proposed, with variety approaches and implemented in many areas of application. Some discussion arose in self-healing topics include the conflict of terminology definition with self-adaptive or fault-tolerance system, the state of “healthy” or “unhealthy” system, system monitoring, recovery strategy, and many more. One of approach in self-healing software is using multi-agent, that had been implemented, especially to address the condition when the self-healing system is implemented using exogenous approach. The agents can take different role in each step of self-healing (detecting, diagnosing, and recovering), so we need to identify agents' responsibility for each step. This paper is discussed some previous solution in defining agent role in self-healing and proposed the conceptual framework in defining agent's role. The framework is divided into 2 level, macro and micro, macro level tied into business and process goal, and micro level connected into system/software component. The framework is expected can help us identify the role each agent and extend the research by examine the detail role of each agents in each level.