Behavior Patterns for Mobile Agent Systems from the Development Process Viewpoint

As wide-area open networks like the Internet and intranets grow larger, mobile agent technology is attracting more attention. Agents are units of software that can deal with environmental changes and the various requirements of open networks through features such as autonomy, mobility, intelligence, cooperation, and reactivity. However, since the usual development methods of the agent systems are not sufficiently investigated, the technology is not yet widespread. In the previous papers, we introduced behavior patterns for mobile agent systems and the development method. The behavior patterns represent typical and recurring structures and behaviors of agents. The patterns are classified according to their appropriate architectural levels and the degree to which they depend on specific agent platforms. In this paper, we evaluate the advantages of our method from the development process viewpoints. Our evaluation focuses on the development efficiency, the applicability, the extensibility and the understandability of our method.