Topological analysis of a two coupled evolving networks model for business systems

In multi-agent systems, the underlying networks are always dynamic and network topologies are always changing over time. Performance analyses of topologies are important for understanding the robustness of the system and also the effects of topology on the system efficiency and effectiveness. In this paper, we present an example of a real-world distributed agent system, a digital business ecosystem (DBE). It is modelled as a two coupled network system. The upper layer is the business network layer where business process between different business agents happen. The lower layer is the underlying P2P communication layer to support communications between the agents. Algorithms for multi-agent tasks negotiation and execution, interaction between agents and the underlying communication network, evolutionary network topology dynamics, are provided. These algorithms consider the two network layers evolving over time, with effects on each other. Through a comprehensive set of discrete event simulation, we investigate the effects of different evolutionary principles inspired by random graph and scale-free network in complex network theory on the topological properties and performance of the underlying network. We also find several rules to design a resilient and efficient P2P network.

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