Maintenance and monitoring of remote software using an agent platform

This paper discusses the maintenance needs of distributed devices, and proposes a platform for satisfying these needs while providing a homogeneous interface to maintainers. An agent-oriented paradigm is applied in developing this platform, and its use is defended. The platform is designed and implemented in a way that is flexible for deployment on a wide variety of embedded software devices, allowing maintainers to gather information and perform maintenance on these devices either locally or remotely.