Abstract
Scalable coordination is a key challenge in deploying massively multi-agent systems. Resource usage is one part of agent behavior which naturally lends itself to abstraction. CyberOrgs is a model for hierarchical coordination of resource usage by multi-agent applications in a network of peer-owned resources. Programming constructs based on CyberOrgs allow resource trade and control reification while maintaining a separation between functional and resource concerns. An operational semantics of CyberOrgs is presented. Expressive power of programming constructs based on CyberOrgs is illustrated with examples.
Hierarchical control presents challenges in scalability. However, some types of resource coordination are amenable to efficient implementation using CyberOrgs. Hierarchical control of processor time, for instance, can be implemented scalably by efficiently flattening the hierarchical schedule on the fly. Experimental results demonstrate scalability of the technique. Generalizations of this solution for hierarchical control of processor, network and other computational resources in a distributed system are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Agha, G.: Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems. MIT Press, Cambridge (1986)
Agha, G., Jamali, N.: Concurrent programming for distributed artificial intelligence. In: Weiss, G. (ed.) Multiagent Systems: A Modern Approach to DAI, ch. 12. MIT Press, Cambridge (1999)
Agha, G., Mason, I.A., Smith, S.F., Talcott, C.L.: A foundation for actor computation. Journal of Functional Programming (1996) (to appear)
Bond, A., Gasser, L. (eds.): Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufman Publishers, San Mateo (1988)
Gasser, L.: DAI approaches to coordination. In: Avouris, N.M., Gasser, L. (eds.) Distributed Artificial Intelligence: Theory and Praxis, pp. 31–51. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1992)
Gelernter, D., Carriero, N.: Coordination languages and their significance. Communications of the ACM 35(2), 97–107 (1992)
Hewitt, C., de Jong, P.: Open systems. In: Mylopoulos, J., Schmidt, J.W., Brodie, M.L. (eds.) On Conceptual Modeling, ch. 6, pp. 147–164. Springer, Heidelberg (1984)
Jamali, N.: CyberOrgs: A Model for Resource Bounded Complex Agents. PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2004)
Jennings, N.R.: Commitments and conventions: The foundation of coordination in multi-agent systems. The Knowledge Engineering Review 8(3), 223–250 (1993)
Kim, W., Agha, G.: Efficient Support of Location Transparency in Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming Languages. In: Proceedings of Supercomputing 1995 (1995)
Kornfeld, W.A., Hewitt, C.: The scientific community metaphor. IEEE Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics 11(1), 24–33 (1981)
Open Systems Laboratory. The Actor Foundry: A Java-based actor programming environment, Available for download at, http://www-osl.cs.uiuc.edu/foundry
Manning, C.: Introduction to programming actors in acore. In: Hewitt, C., Agha, G. (eds.) Towards Open Information Systems Science, ch. 2, pp. 33–80. MIT Press, Cambridge (1990)
Moreau, L., Queinnec, C.: Design and semantics of quantum: a language to control resource consumption in distributed computing. In: Usenix Conference on Domain-Specific Languages (DSL 1997), Santa-Barbara, California, pp. 183–197 (1997)
Moreau, L., Queinnec, C.: Distributed and Multi-Type Resource Management. In: ECOOP 2002 Workshop on Resource Management for Safe Languages, Malaga, Spain (June 2002)
White, J.E.: Telescript Technology: The Foundation for the Electronic Marketplace. Technical report, General Magic Inc., Mountainview, CA (1994)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jamali, N., Zhao, X. (2005). Hierarchical Resource Usage Coordination for Large-Scale Multi-agent Systems. In: Ishida, T., Gasser, L., Nakashima, H. (eds) Massively Multi-Agent Systems I. MMAS 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3446. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11512073_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11512073_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26974-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31889-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)