A component-based approach for integrating mobile agents into the existing web infrastructure

Mobile agents provide a new abstraction for deploying functionality over the existing internet infrastructure. During the last two years, we have been working on a project that tries to overcome some of the limitations found in terms of programmability and usability of the mobile agent paradigm in real applications. In the M&M framework there are no agent platforms. Instead applications become agent-enabled by using simple JavaBeans components. In this paper we present an architecture that allows currently available web servers to become capable of sending and receiving agents in an easy way. By using this approach, existing web infrastructure can be maintained, while gaining a whole new potential by being able to make use of agent technology. Our approach involves wrapping the components inside a Java servlet that can be included in any web server supporting the Servlet Specification. This servlet enables the servers to receive and send agents that can query, local information, and also enables the agents to behave as servlets themselves. We currently, have used the framework with several existing commercial web servers, inclusively having the security mechanisms of the framework correctly running and integrated with the security architecture of the server