Mohan Baruwal Chhetri

A coordinated architecture for the agent-based service level agreement negotiation of Web service composition

Recent progress in the field of Web services has made it possible to integrate inter-organizational and heterogeneous services on the Web at runtime. If a user request cannot be satisfied by a single Web service, it is (or should be) possible to combine existing services in order to fulfill the request. However, there are several challenging issues that need to be addressed before this can be realized in the true sense. One of them is the ability to ensure end-to-end QoS of a Web service composition. There is a need for a SLA negotiation system which can ensure the autonomous QoS negotiation of Web service compositions irrespective of the application domain. In this paper we propose agent-based coordinated-negotiation architecture to ensure collective functionality, end-to-end QoS and the stateful coordination of complex services. We describe a prototype implementation to demonstrate how this architecture can be used in different application domains. We have also demonstrated how the negotiation system on the service providers side can be implemented both as an agent based negotiation system and as a Web service based negotiation system.

Policy-Based Automation of SLA Establishment for Cloud Computing Services

We propose a policy-based framework for the automated establishment of SLAs for cloud computing services. The proposed framework supports multiple interaction models for SLA establishment giving consumers and providers the flexibility to choose one that is most appropriate in a given context, while simultaneously supporting multiple concurrent SLA interactions using different interaction models. We describe the underlying policies, focussing on the key features and contributions of the framework. We also validate our framework through a real-world use-case scenario using the Amazon EC2 service.

Smart CloudBench -- Automated Performance Benchmarking of the Cloud

As the rate of cloud computing adoption grows, so does the need for consumption assistance. Enterprises that are looking to migrate their IT systems to the cloud, would like to quickly identify providers that offer resources with the most appropriate pricing and performance levels to match their specific business needs. However, no two vendors offer the same resource configurations, pricing and provisioning models, making the task of selecting appropriate computing resources complex, time-consuming and expensive. In this paper, we present Smart CloudBench - a platform that automates the performance benchmarking of cloud infrastructure, helping potential consumers quickly identify the cloud providers that can deliver the most appropriate price/performance levels to meet their specific requirements. Users can estimate the actual performance of the different cloud platforms by testing representative benchmark applications under representative load conditions. Experimentation using the prototype implementation shows that higher price does not necessarily translate to better or more consistent performance, and benchmarking results can provide more information to help enterprises make better informed decisions.

WS2JADE: A Tool for Run-time Deployment and Control of Web Services as JADE Agent Services

Web services and software agent technologies are two areas that have attracted substantial research and industry interests in recent years. On the one hand, the Web services technology is gaining popularity because of its well-defined infrastructure aiming at enabling interoperability among heterogenous applications. On the other hand, the agent technology aims at providing intelligent autonomous capabilities for distributed components. A combination of these two technologies could create an environment where Web services and agents can employ and compliment each others’ strengths. In this chapter, we propose a framework called WS2JADE for integrating Web services and the JADE agent platform. In particular, the technical aspects of run-time deployment and control of Web services as agent services with WS2JADE are presented. We relate our framework to other solutions in the area and show how new emerging Web services management technologies can be used with WS2JADE for enabling Web services management with agents. The management capabilities are demonstrated with simple examples of using WS2JADE for service discovery, composition and deployment with JADE agents.

Shaman: Software and Human Agents in Multiattribute Auctions and Negotiations

Three distinct and interacting types of entities: people, software agents and e-markets are considered in this paper. These entities operate within Shaman, a proposed framework for the construction and operation of heterogeneous systems enabling business interactions such as auctions and negotiations between software and human agents across those systems. Shaman is a dss-centric software environment which cooperates with and serves the users of distributed auction and negotiation systems. The dss are used to provide integration and coordination between the participating systems. Four such systems are discussed: Invite e-negotiation platform, enas negotiation agent suite, meet2trade auction platform and GoGo group buying software platform. The Shaman architecture based on these systems and the examples of their interaction enabled by Shaman are discussed.

Policy-Based Management of QoS in Service Aggregations

We present a policy-centered QoS meta-model which can be used by service providers and consumers alike to express capabilities, requirements, constraints, and general management characteristics relevant for SLA establishment in service aggregations. We also provide a QoS assertion model which is generic, domain-independent and conforming to the WS-Policy syntax and semantics. Using these two models, assertions over acceptable and required values for QoS properties can be expressed across the different service layers and service roles.

Towards Autonomous Service Level Agreement Negotiation for Adaptive Service Composition

This paper reports innovative research aiming at supporting autonomous establishment and maintenance of service level agreements in order to guarantee end-to-end quality of service requirements for service composition provision. In this research, a set of interrelated service level agreements is established and maintained for a service composition, through autonomous agent negotiation. To enable this, an innovative framework is proposed in which agents on behalf of the service requestor and the service providers can negotiate service level agreements in a coordinated way. This framework also enables adaptive service level agreement re-negotiation in the dynamic and ever-changing service environment

Smart cloud broker: finding your home in the clouds

As the rate of cloud computing adoption grows, so does the need for consumption assistance. Enterprises looking to migrate their IT systems to the cloud require assistance in identifying providers that offer resources with the most appropriate pricing and performance levels to match their specific business needs. In this paper, we present Smart Cloud Broker - a suite of software tools that allows cloud infrastructure consumers to evaluate and compare the performance of different Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings from competing cloud service providers, and consequently supports selection of the cloud configuration and provider with the specifications that best meet the users requirements. Using Smart Cloud Broker, prospective cloud users can estimate the performance of the different cloud platforms by running live tests against representative benchmark applications under representative load conditions.

ASAPM - An Agent-Based Framework for Adaptive Management of Composite Service Lifecycle

Agent technology is well positioned to address some of the key problems of service-oriented computing. It can work together with other technologies such as Web/grid services, semantic Web, process technologies, and component software to contribute to wide adoption of the service-oriented computing paradigm. This paper presents a generic agent-based framework which can be used as reference architecture for developing agent-based systems for composite service life-cycle management. The focus is on providing techniques and tools for the adaptive service agreement and process management in order to ensure collective functionality, end-to-end QoS, and adaptive provision of complex services.

JADE-FSM-Engine: A Deployment Tool for Flexible Agent Behaviours in JADE

We present Multi-DisPel, a penalty-based local search distributed algorithm which is able to solve coarse-grained Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems (DisCSPs) efficiently. Multi-DisPeL uses penalties on values in order to escape local optima during problem solving rather than the popular weights on constraints. We also introduce DisBO-wd, a stochastic algorithm based on DisBO (Distributed Breakout) which includes a weight decay mechanism. We compare Multi-DisPeL and DisBO-wd with other algorithms and show, empirically, that they are more efficient and at least as effective as state of the art algorithms in some problem classes.Multiagent systems (MAS) are a promising software development paradigm for complex and dynamic application domains. However, building effective MAS software requires models, mechanisms and tools that support the flexible and precise specification and implementation of MAS, specifically agent behaviours. MAS should be designed highly flexible capable of adapting to changes in their environment and user needs. JADE platform provides limited support for constructing and coordinating complex agent behaviours by employing the FSM model. Our experiences motivated us to build the JADE-FSM-Engine as a JADE add-on, extending and augmenting the native JADE FSM Behaviour. This add-on enables easy runtime configuration and reconfiguration of JADE agents, improving flexibility and adaptability of MAS implementations. A simple example illustrates this flexibility.