An agent based platform for task distribution in virtual environments

This paper focuses on automatic mechanisms for task distribution and execution in virtual and mobile environments. In particular, the goal is the implementation of Utility Computing services that enable users to submit their source code and to have their applications executed without concerning about resource allocation, task distribution, and load-balancing. The proposed solution consists in a distributed agent-based software infrastructure that grants a high level of transparency from the user point of view. As a matter of fact, accordingly with the Utility Computing model, the user has just to submit its tasks and their input parameters: after that, the software infrastructure takes care of (1) encapsulating tasks in mobile agents; (2) distributing them in the virtual environment; (3) launching and controlling execution; (4) picking up results; and (5) handling computing stations. Finally, it is important to note that the infrastructure is able to integrate both fixed and mobile hardware resources to build a community of computing stations for task executions. As a consequence, such an infrastructure can get useful computing power even from stations (mobile devices) that have always been neglected by classic task execution platforms. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.