DARX - a framework for the fault-tolerant support of agent software

Abstract

This paper presents DARX, our framework for building applications that provide adaptive fault tolerance. It relies on the fact that multi-agent platforms constitute a very strong basis for decentralized software that is both flexible and scalable, and makes the assumption that the relative importance of each agent varies during the course of the computation. DARX regroups solutions which facilitate the creation of multi-agent applications in a large-scale context. Its most important feature is adaptive replication: replication strategies are applied on a per-agent basis with respect to transient environment characteristics such as the importance of the agent for the computation, the network load or the mean time between failures. Firstly, the interwoven concerns of multi-agent systems and fault-tolerant solutions are put forward. An overview of the DARX architecture follows, as well as an evaluation of its performances. We conclude, after outlining the promising outcomes, by presenting prospective work.