Running mobile agent code over simulated inter-networks : an extra gear towards distributed system evaluation

Mobile Agent (MA) systems are complex software entities whose behavior, performance and effectiveness cannot always be anticipated by the designer. Their evaluation often presents various aspects that require a careful, methodological approach as well as the adoption of suitable tools, needed to identify critical overheads that may impact the overall system performance, stability, validity and scalability. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to evaluating complex mobile agent systems based on a hybrid framework which allows the execution of prototype agent code over simulated internet-works. In this way it is possible to realize arbitrarily complex MA systems and evaluate them over arbitrarily complex inter-networks, relying on full support to physical, link, network and transport layers for fixed and mobile networks. We illustrate the potential of our approach through an example agent system which we have prototyped and assessed over large-scale IP networks. Key-Words:- Mobile Agent Systems evaluation; mobile agents simulation; large-scale systems; verification and validation of distributed systems; network partitioning algorithm