Highly adaptable distributed system architectures through combining component-based and agent-based software architectures. Native code management, versioning, and generic component UIs. Facilitated for remote supervision of process control systems.
Motivation
The nearly omnipresence of the Internet and the steady increase of wireless computing and mobile devices require highly dynamic adaptable distributed system architectures. Building such architectures needs a combination of key concepts from component technology and distributed systems. Mobile agents provide this combination. We use mobile agents as the building blocks of a component-based system for remote supervision and control of both hard- and software in a distributed environment.
Goals
- Combining concepts of component-based and agent-based software architectures
- Development of an agent-based middleware and component framework for creating dynamically adaptable distributed systems.
- Development of a system for configuring and monitoring distributed automation systems based on the created middleware.
Results
- An agent-based middleware and component framework for creating distributed component-based software systems based on Java and Aglets (RSE)
- A native-code management framework for managing versioned C++ libraries on target systems (part of RSE)
- A framework for automatically generating configuration user interfaces based an component meta-data and presentation hints
- A framework for agent coordination, measuring, and report generation
- Proof of concepts, by applying the developed concepts and tools for remote diagnosis of process automation systems (with Siemens Erlangen I&S)
- Fault tolerant middleware services (based on replication) for distributed agent-based component systems, including a directory service, an event service and a communication service (Insight)
Partners:
- Siemens Munich
- Siemens Erlangen I&S
Contact: Rainer Weinreich
Publications