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Anomaly management scheme for a multi-agent system

  • US 8,200,743 B2
  • Filed: 03/11/2005
  • Issued: 06/12/2012
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2004
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An inter-agent interaction anomaly management method for a distributed computing environment implemented as a communications network comprising a plurality of devices, wherein said plurality of devices collectively comprise a multi-agent system supporting inter-agent interactions in said distributed computing environment, the system comprising a plurality of application agent groups, each application agent group of said plurality of application agent groups comprising one or more application agents, and one or more administrative agents arranged to flexibly assign one or more anomaly management agents to each application agent group of said plurality of application agent groups of said multi-agent system, the inter-agent interaction anomaly management method comprising:

  • a referring application agent of one of the plurality of devices, said at least one of the plurality of devices including a processor, performing the steps of;

    participating or seeking to participate in an interaction with a referred application agent of another one of said plurality of devices;

    determining that an interaction anomaly has occurred if the interaction with said referred application agent did not proceed in accordance with the expectations of the referring application agent;

    determining if a condition related to the referred application agent has caused said interaction anomaly in the interaction by performing the steps of;

    communicating with one or more agent description directories which associate the referred application agent with one or more said anomaly management agents to determine which one or more of said anomaly management agents should receive a report message;

    generating the report message which contains information related to the interaction anomaly and enabling the referred application agent to be identified by an anomaly management agent; and

    referring the referred application agent by sending the report message to at least one receiving anomaly management agent associated with the application agent group of the referred application agent, whereby the information provided by the report message is processed by a receiving anomaly management agent to determine if at least one condition affecting the referred application agent has caused the interaction anomaly;

    at least one of the administration agents performing the steps of;

    contacting a directory facilitator agent to get a list of all the agent descriptions registered by application agents and anomaly management agents;

    calculating a load index value which indicates how many anomaly management agents are providing an anomaly management service for how many application agents in each application agent group of said plurality of application agent groups;

    comparing the load index value of each application agent group of said plurality of application agent groups with a predetermined value in a load balancing rule which balances the load of application agents to anomaly management agents for each application agent group of said plurality of application agent groups in the multi-agent system; and

    in the event that there are any application agent groups that have an unbalanced load index,re-assigning one or more anomaly management agents from application agent groups which have surplus anomaly management agents to one or more overloaded application agent group that have too few anomaly management agents; and

    modifying a service description of each re-assigned anomaly management agent and updating a registry of the directory facilitator agent.

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