BeesyBees: A mobile agent-based middleware for a reliable and secure execution of service-based workflow applications in BeesyCluster

Issue title: Agent Based Computing: From Model to Implementation

Guest editors: Maria Ganzhaw, Marcin Paprzyckix, Costin Badicay and Rainer Unlandz

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Czarnul, Paweł | Matuszek, Mariusz^{; *} | Wójcik, Michał | Zalewski, Karol

Affiliations: Faculty of Electronics Telecommunications and Informatics, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland | [w] Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw and University of Gdansk, Warsaw, Poland | [x] Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw and Management Academy, Warsaw, Poland | [y] Software Engineering Department, Faculty of Automatics, Computers and Electronics, University of Craiova, Bvd.Decebal, Craiova, Romania | [z] University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Computer Science and Business Information Systems (ICB), Practical Computer Science, Data Management Systems and Knowledge Representation, Essen, Germany

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Mariusz Matuszek, Faculty of Electronics Telecommunications and Informatics, Gdansk University of Technology, G.Narutowicza 11/12 Str., 80-233 Gdansk, Poland. E-mail: Mariusz.Matuszek@eti.pg.gda.pl

Abstract: Integrating distributed services into workflows comes with its own set of challenges, including security, coordination, fault tolerance and optimisation of execution time. This paper presents an architecture and implementation – nicknamed BeesyBees – that allows distributed execution of workflow applications in BeesyCluster using agents. BeesyCluster is a middleware that allows users to access distributed resources as well as publish applications as services, define service costs, grant access to other users services and consume services published by others. Workflows created in the BeesyCluster middleware are exported to BPEL and executed by BeesyBees agents in a distributed environment. Firstly, the paper demonstrates that engaging several agents to execute a workflow in a distributed fashion is more efficient than a centralised approach. It also discusses negotiation time tradeoffs in case of too many agents assigned to the task. An algorithm was proposed to migrate agents to such locations so that the workflow execution time is minimised. Secondly, it demonstrates that execution in the proposed environment is reliable even in case of failures. If a service fails, a task agent picks a new equivalent service at runtime. If one of task agents fails, another of remaining agents takes over its responsibilities. The communication between the middleware, agents and services is encrypted.

Keywords: Agent based computing, workflow execution, service integration, execution management, fault-tolerant workflow execution

DOI: 10.3233/MGS-2011-0178

Journal: Multiagent and Grid Systems , vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 219-241, 2011