Application of Mobile Agents in Mobile Data Access Systems: A Prototype

Creating a global information-sharing environment in the presence of autonomy and heterogeneity of data sources is a difficult task. When adding mobility and wireless medium to this mix, the constraints on bandwidth, connectivity, and resources worsen the problem. Our past research in global information sharing systems resulted in the design, implementation, and prototype of a search engine, the summary schemas model, which supports imprecise global accesses to the data sources while preserving local autonomy. We extended the scope of our search engine by incorporating mobile agent technology. The use of mobile agents alleviates many problems associated with wireless communication. We devised and implemented the MAMDAS system, which applies mobile agent technology in a mobile data access system framework. As shown by our experimental study, MAMDAS achieved better performance, scalability, portability, and robustness compared to its predecessors.