Implementing a mobile agent infrastructure on the .NET framework

This paper presents the solution adopted by the AgentService platform in implementing a software infrastructure for mobile agents. The mobility service takes advantage of the agent model provided by the platform which offers the separation between the state of the agent and its activities. The modular architecture of the platform allows an elegant integration of the mobility service whose implementation resides within an additional platform module. The mobility infrastructure offers its services to the agents that can be stopped, moved, and restarted in a transparent manner. AgentService provides a sort of weak mobility service: during a transfer the state of the agent is maintained while the activities it performs are started from the beginning. The mobility infrastructure is a component that enriches the platform features and allows the implementation of more complex services such as load balancing strategies among different AgentService installations.