Market-based Resource Control for Mobile Agents

Jonathan Bredin, Dartmouth College
David Kotz, Dartmouth College
Daniela Rus, Dartmouth College

Dartmouth Computer Science report TR97-326

Abstract

Mobile agents are programs that can migrate from machine to machine in a heterogeneous, partially disconnected network. As mobile agents move across a network, they consume resources. We discuss a system for controlling the activities of mobile agents that uses electronic cash, a banking system, and a set of resource managers. We describe protocols for transactions between agents. We present fixed-pricing and dynamic-pricing policies for resources. We focus on and analyze the sealed-bid second-price auction as a mechanism for dynamic pricing.