| Mobile Agents are programs that move in a network from one computer to another performing a set of tasks on each of them. Mobile agents are an interesting and radically different approach to distributed computing. A focus of previous research has been on development of mobile-agent-based middleware systems. The characteristic nature of mobile code contributes towards the lack of real-world mobile agent applications. Mobile agent applications can be characterized by a set of mobile agent design patterns. The specific needs of an application will dictate the selection of an appropriate mobile agent design pattern. This thesis presents a model that describes mobile agent design patterns in terms of their attributes (e.g., name, pattern type, description, problem, forces, applicability and objects) and behavioral characteristics (e.g., location, communication, movement and execution). The developed model will be tested by using it as the basis to implement a visual pattern-based mobile agent development environment (MADE) with code generation. MADE will use mobile agent design patterns to guide a programmer through the selection of key components and behaviors needed for his mobile agent application. MADE, and indirectly the model, will be tested by confirming the ease of development of mobile agent applications. |
