Organisational structures in next-generation distributed systems: Towards a technology of agreement¹

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Billhardt, Holger^{a; *} | Centeno, Roberto^a | Cuesta, Carlos E.^b | Fernández, Alberto^a | Hermoso, Ramón^a | Ortiz, Rubén^a | Ossowski, Sascha^a | Pérez-Sotelo, J. Santiago^a | Vasirani, Matteo^a

Affiliations: [a] Centre for Intelligent Information Technologies (CETINIA), University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain | [b] Department of Computer Languages and Systems II (DLSI2), University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. E-mail: holger.billhardt@urjc.es

Note: [1] Editor’s note: Early version of this article was included in the Proceedings of OTM 2008 Workshops, LNCS – Lecture Notes in Computer science, Springer, Volume 5333, pp. 138–149, 2008.

Abstract: This article provides a brief overview of the field of coordination in multiagent systems, and outlines its relation to current efforts working towards a paradigm for smart, next-generation distributed systems, where coordination is based on the concept of agreement between computational entities. Two examples are provided to visualize the types of mechanisms that can be part of a “technology of agreement”. They explain how techniques from the field of organisations can be used to further coordination and agreement in open multiagent systems. This approach requires autonomy of the coordinated systems and their constituting agents, implying also the need for eventual reorganization and self-adaptation âĂŞ hence the article presents also an architectural strategy to tackle the inherent dynamism in these features.

Keywords: Multiagent systems, organisational techniques, coordination, agreement technologies, distributed systems, self-adaptation, reorganisation, adaptive architecture

DOI: 10.3233/MGS-2011-0168

Journal: Multiagent and Grid Systems , vol. 7, no. 2-3, pp. 109-125, 2011