Reliable Communication in the Presence of Agent Mobility

Although mainly resorting to local communication, all mobile agent systems also provide some kind of remote communication facility. This introduces issues not addressed in the protocols provided by the transport layer, such as TCP, nor in its extensions to cope with physical mobility. The problem consists of tracking the agent to which the channel must be established, and providing support for the migration of any of the channel´s endpoints. In this paper, we propose a model that solves both problems, transparently to the application, by resorting to sophisticated interaction with a naming service and by featuring a protocol to support the migration of both the connection´s endpoints.