Rule-driven coordination agents: a self-configurable agent architecture for distributed control

The need for coordination among autonomous entities is common in dynamically changing domains. One such domain is the coordination of components in distributed component architectures. In these architectures, asynchronous communication is used to ensure autonomy. Management systems that control such architectures must respect this autonomy by decentralizing interaction policies and control. Middle agents (Decker et al., 1997) have been introduced as brokers or mediators in such dynamic settings. Rule-driven coordination (RDC) agents are middle agents that act as brokers to the individual components in component architectures. These RDC agents encapsulate the interaction policy definition (rules) and the aspects of communication, data management, and policy execution. This paper defines each of these aforementioned aspects of the RDC agents. Furthermore, there is the use of RDC agents to manage a workflow of Java-based components in a typical electronic commerce domain