Agent Migration over FIPA ACL Messages

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of an interagency mobility (migration) mechanism for agents. This migration is based on FIPA ACL messages. We also evaluate the performance of this implementation Agent mobility is an essential requirement for some electronic commerce applications, such as those in the Sea-of-Data (SOD) family. The majority of agent systems at present do not support mobility or do not respect standards. This situation does not encourage inter-operability. Our implementation provides a Mobile Agent System that is compatible with the FIPA standard, and SOD applications can be implemented using it. Our solution has been confirmed as feasible by performance evaluation, even in situations of extreme agent load. Already existing applications may make use of our idea to increase their functionality and flexibility, as our results have been integrated in the well-known JADE agent platform.