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ISSN 1574-1702 (P)
ISSN 1875-9076 (E)
Impact Factor 2024: 0.6
Multiagent and Grid Systems - An International Journal of Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence aims to provide a timely and leading forum for researchers and practitioners in the thematic areas of intelligent agents, multi-agent negotiation and collaboration, cloud computing, cloud datacenter, big data, data-driven artificial intelligence, cloud enabled artificial intelligence, AI based cloud computing. It publishes peer-refereed research and application papers of high technical quality and scientific standard.
The journal features original research papers, comprehensive and sound survey papers about the state-of-the-art, technical papers about implementation issues of general interest, applications and field works. Moreover, from time to time it presents special issues on contemporary problems of profound research challenges in its thematic areas.
Abstract: The ability to create reliable and scalable virtual organisations (VOs) on demand in a dynamic, open and competitive environment is one of the major challenges that underlie Grid computing. In response, in the CONOISE-G project, we are developing an infrastructure to support robust and resilient virtual organisation formation and operation. Specifically, CONOISE-G provides mechanisms to assure effective operation of agent-based VOs in the face of disruptive and potentially malicious entities in dynamic, open and competitive environments. In this paper, we describe the CONOISE-G system, outline its use in the context of VO formation and perturbation, and review current efforts to…progress the work to deal with unreliable information sources.
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Keywords: Virtual organisations, policing, trust, quality of service monitoring, agents, Grid
Abstract: Grid computations will be enabled by participants trading resources in order to construct bundles of goods or services that constitute experiments in science, engineering and, now emerging, social sciences. A combinatorial auction (CA) is a natural choice for optimal allocation, but the space and time dimensions that characterise a Grid would appear to indicate they are incompatible. This paper proposes that an analogue of a physical commodities market seems more appropriate and that there is a class of bundling problem whose complexity properties appear to make the utilisation of a CA impractical. A simulation environment, BrickWorld, is described…which comprises a distributed tier of “TraderAgents” and multiple distributed single item auctions (MDAs). The issues associated with the complexity of bundling are evaluated, in particular those arising when attempting to provide useful combinations of items in situations when the multi-dimensionality of the bundle would make it impractical to finish the NP-complete optimisation successfully in the soft real-time setting that is the Grid. Finally, the evaluation strategy presented helps demonstrate that for small bundling problems, a single CA continues to provide a high level of performance, but as the complexity level of the problem increases and the problem becomes distributed a system of MDAs may prove more effective.
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Abstract: Even though common Grid Management Software, like Condor or the SUN Grid Engine, features sophisticated functionality to execute and observe jobs on a computing Grid, it often lacks a comprehensive support for multi-modal access, security, accounting and advanced messaging. To tackle these shortcomings, the concept of an agent-based Advanced Grid Management Software is introduced. The approach envisions a multi-agent architecture forming an additional access and management layer which rests on top of conventional Grid Management Software implementations. Agents are supposed to remedy the aforementioned deficiencies by providing value-added services which extend the basic functionalities of the underlying Grid. An agent-based…service platform for multi-modal access is used to feature an enhanced user interface to the functionality offered by the Advanced Grid Management Software.
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Keywords: Grid Management Software, Agent, Multi-modal Access, Service
Abstract: On-demand acquisition of computational power from remote providers is the basic motivation of Grid Computing and Service Oriented Computing in general. Both concepts propose to eliminate inefficiencies in enterprises' IT infrastructure, reduce costs and increase flexibility. However, participants waive control and risk non-availability at runtime. An important phase in the procurement process is the selection of a provider out of a candidate list. This article compares two approaches for service selection. In a centralized service selection concept, a resource broker selects and assigns partners, while a coordinator-free approach uses bilateral negotiations to build pairs. A network simulation analyzes allocation results…using technical and economic metrics, and shows the decentralized approach's higher adaptiveness to changing network dynamics and service instance density.
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Keywords: Service oriented architecture, on-demand computing, service selection
Abstract: Efficient resource discovery and allocation is one of the challenges of any large scale Application Layer Network (ALN) such as computational Grids, Content Distribution Networks and P2P applications. In centralized approaches, the user requests can easily be matched to the most convenient resource. These approaches, however, present scalability limits in the highly dynamic and complex ALN environments. This paper, explores an architecture for incorporating fully decentralized economic mechanisms for resource allocation. These mechanisms are implemented by a set of trading agents that operate on behalf of the clients and service providers, interacting over an overlay network and interfacing with the…underlying resources of the platform. A prototype of the proposed architecture is presented and the practical implications of its implementation in a grid scenario are discussed.
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Abstract: Grid computing has recently become an important paradigm for managing computationally demanding applications, composed of a collection of services. The dynamic discovery of services, and the selection of a particular service instance providing the best value out of the discovered alternatives, poses a complex multi-attribute n:m allocation decision problem, which is often solved using a centralized resource broker. To manage complexity, this article proposes a two-layer architecture for service discovery in such Application Layer Networks (ALN). The first layer consists of a service market in which complex services are translated to a set of basic services, which are distinguished by…price and availability. The second layer provides an allocation of services to appropriate resources in order to enact the specified services. This framework comprises the foundations for a later comparison of centralized and decentralized market mechanisms for allocation of services and resources in ALNs and Grids.
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Keywords: Grid computing, market mechanisms, agent-enabled service oriented architecture