Applying Multi-agent Concepts to Dynamic Plug-In Architectures

Abstract

Abstract. In this work we present the basic concepts for a dynamic plug-in-based software architecture using concepts from the Petri netbased MAS framework Mulan. By transferring the concepts of agentorientation to a plug-in-based architecture we are able to design our application and the plug-in-based system on an abstract level. Moreover, general problems that evolve from a highly dynamic and configurable architecture have been solved by basing the conceptual design on multi-agent principles. In this paper we discuss the general properties of extensible systems and the benefits that can be achieved when applying the multi-agent view to their architecture. In addition to the conceptual modeling of such architectures, we provide a practical example where the concept has been successfully applied in the development of the latest release of Renew. Through the introduction of the multi-agent concepts, the new architecture is now -at runtime -dynamically extensible by registering plug-ins with the management system.

Modeling with Service Dependency Diagrams

“…The current version of the tool, for example, can generate diagrams that show the RENEW plugin dependencies. Because the RENEW plugins and the plugin system were conceptually based on agent technology, this additional functionality was achieved with very little effort (compare with [4]).…”