Models and Technologies for the Coordination of Internet Agents: A Survey

Agent technology has evolved rapidly over the past few years along a number of dimensions giving rise to numerous “flavours” of agents such as intelligent agents, mobile agents, etc. One of the most attractive and natural fields for the development of agent technology is the Internet with its vast quantity of available information and offered services. In fact, the term “Internet agent” is effectively an umbrella for most of the other types of agents, since Internet agents should enjoy intelligence, mobility, adaptability, etc. All these different types of agents must be able to somehow interact with each other for the purpose of exchanging information, collaborating or managing heterogeneous environments. This survey presents some of the most common models and technologies that offer coordination mechanisms for Internet agents. It argues for the need of using coordination, then it presents some basic infrastructure technologies before examining in more detail particular coordination models for Internet agents, themselves classified into some general categories.