Designing Peer-To-Peer Agent Auctions Using Object-Process Methodology

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture is one of the most interesting topics in distributed systems and other related areas (e.g., AI, Database, etc). Basic P2P applications have only implemented limited aspects of a real P2P environment. Meanwhile the fast growing technology, autonomous agents, appear to be a good candidate for most of the complex and dynamic problems. This paper proposes a flexible design for the creation of agent auctions in a distributed environment. Interactions between agents occur in a P2P communication protocol, reducing the role of the centralized auction process to an auction initiator, and to inform agents when a general equilibrium is reached. Agents and auctions are designed using the object-process methodology (OPM) which represents a comprehensive approach to system evolution that incorporates the static-structural and dynamic-procedural aspects of a system into a single unifying model. OPM includes a clear and concise set of symbols that form a language enabling the expression of the system's building blocks and how they relate to each other.