Naplet: A Flexible Mobile Agent Framework for Network-Centric Applications C. Xu

As an alternative distributed programming paradigm, mobile agent technology has recently received much attention with the explosive growth of the Internet. To support mobile agent oriented programming, we have developed a Java-compliant system, Naplet, for increasingly important network-centric distributed applications. The system provides programmers with constructs to create and launch agents and with mechanisms for management of agent execution. Its distinctive features include a structured navigation facility, reliable agent communication mechanism, open resource management policies, and secure service interfaces between alien agents and agent servers. This article reports the architecture of the Naplet system and its application in network management.