An interaction model for mobile agent services using social networks

Computer networks have been experiencing dramatic changes in their nature over the past few years. Traditionally, network services have been provided through simple interactions between a service provider and service consumers (e.g., web server and clients). For example, CNN's web server provides its clients with news through HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). Recent distributed networks, on the other hand, provide network services in a more complex manner involving a greater degree of interaction among service components [1]. Examples of this include mobile agent services [2, 6, 8] where a number of virtual software entities, called agents, migrate over networks to interact with each other and provide network services.