This paper describes a software package named 'licas' (lightweight internet-based communication for autonomic services) that can be used to build networks of service-based components that have the potential to behave autonomously and self-organise through stigmergic links. Discussed will be how these components are able to self-adapt inside of this infrastructure and also show potential for more intelligent behaviour. The links allow for some reasoning possibilities, both as a result of the links themselves and through monitoring the links for optimisation. One research area that appears to be particularly related to this package is that of complex adaptive systems (CASs) and associated features will be described. Comparisons will also be made with the existing established technologies in the area of service-oriented architectures (SOAs).Keywords: infrastructure; software; self-organise; stigmergic linking; reasoning; autonomic services.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Greer, K., Baumgarten, M., Mulvenna, M., Nugent, C. and Curran, K. (2009)
An infrastructure for developing self-organising services
89Biographical notes: Kieran Greer carried out this work in the Faculty of Computing and Engineering at the University of Ulster. He completed a DPhil in 1998 in the area of Artificial Intelligence (neural networks and search heuristics) and has worked on several European research projects in the area of distributed information systems. His main research interests are artificial intelligence (especially autonomous/agent-based or neural systems), distributed information systems and scheduling. He has a strong software development background where he has designed and implemented three innovative software systems. He has (co)authored around 40 publications.Matthias Baumgarten is currently working as a Research Fellow in the Faculty of Computing and Engineering at the University of Ulster. His main duties include project preparation and administration as well as research related tasks within his area of expertise. He is mainly interested in the area of data mining/web mining and has been involved in several European research projects. His main research interests are in the field of web mining, sequential pattern discovery, distributed knowledge systems and personalisation techniques. He has received his PhD in 2005 and has so far (co) authored about 20 publications.