Autonomy and Decentralization in Active Networks: A Case Study for Mobile Agents

This paper discusses the applicability of mobile and intelligent agent technology for the development of active networks (AN). Agent technology has the potential to enhance the autonomy and decentralization of both deployment and execution solutions in an AN environment. The roles involved in an active network business scenario along with the actor specific requirements are shortly outlined. The main part of the paper introduces an agent-based active network architecture able to be built on top of existing programmable network nodes. The APIs offered by the proposed active node architecture are compared with the peer standardization efforts for open node interfaces. Two example applications demonstrate how ANs can improve the functionality of today’s networks, and how mobile agents enhance the robustness and performance of the AN solution.