Oleg Karsaev

P2P Agent Platform: Implementation and Testing

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing, a novel paradigm for distributed information technology, is currently receiving ever increasing interest from both academia and industry. Recent efforts undertaken to integrate multi-agent and P2P architectures are one of such very promising new opportunities. Indeed, multi-agent system (MAS) may be thought of as a multitude of autonomous entities, and, therefore, structuring the agents as a P2P network of nodes may result in an architecture providing a new dimension for design of open MAS composed of a highly transient population of agents. This paper presents an implementation of a P2P Agent Platform providing transparent interaction for distributed P2P agents. The developed P2P Agent Platform implements the basic mandatory components assumed by the functional architecture proposed by the FIPA Nomadic Agents Working Group. This implementation is supported with a search mechanism, a function of an underlying P2P infrastructure. The platform verification is done via prototyping a P2P ground object detection MAS in which the agents situated on top of the distributed instances of the P2P Agent platform provide classification services.

Multi-agent Peer-to-Peer Intrusion Detection

Ever increasing use of heterogeneous networks including mobile devices and ad-hoc sensor networks signifies the role of such information systems’ properties as openness, autonomy, cooperation, coordination, etc. Agent-based service-oriented Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture provides attractive (if not unique) design and implementation paradigm for such systems. This trend implies coherent evolution of security systems, that put in use the notions of distributed security policy, distributed intrusion detection systems, etc.1, requiring novel ideas. The paper proposes new architecture for such security systems. This architecture provides cooperative performance of distributed security means (agents) supported by distributed meta-knowledge base implemented as an overlay network of instances of P2P agent platform set up on top of P2P networking provider. The paper also analyzes new issues of P2P security systems with the main emphasis on P2P training of security agents to correlation of alerts produced by other relevant agents. An artificially built case study is used to highlight the essence of P2P security agent training to P2P decision combining and to exhibit new problems.

Multi Agent System Development Kit

Recent research in area of multi-agent technology attracted a growing attention of both scientific community and industrial companies. This attention is stipulated by powerful capabilities of multi-agent technology allowing to create large scale distributed intelligent systems, and, on the other hand, by practical needs of industrial companies to possess an advanced and reliable technology for solving of practically important problems. Currently one of the topmost questions of the research is development of powerful methodologies for engineering of agent-based systems and development of more effective and efficient tools supporting implementation of applied systems. The paper presents one of such tools, Multi Agent System Development Kit, based on and implementing of Gaia methodology. It supports the whole life cycle of multi-agent system development and maintains integrity of solutions produced at different stages of the development process.

Asynchronous alert correlation in multi-agent intrusion detection systems

This paper presents conceptual model, architecture and software prototype of a multi-agent intrusion detection system (IDS) operating on the basis of heterogeneous alert correlation. The latter term denotes IDS provided with a structure of anomaly detection–like classifiers designed for detection of intrusions in cooperative mode. An idea is to use a structure of classifiers operating on the basis of various data sources and trained for detection of attacks of particular classes. Alerts in regard to particular attack classes produced by multiple classifiers are correlated at the upper layer. The top-layer classifier solves intrusion detection task: it combines decisions of specialized alert correlation classifiers of the lower layer and produces combined decision in order to more reliably detect an attack class. IDS software prototype operating on the basis of input traffic is implemented as multi-agent system trained to detect attacks of classes DoS, Probe and U2R. The paper describes structure of such multi-layered intrusion detection, outlines preprocessing procedures and ‘data sources, specifies the IDS multi-agent architecture and presents briefly the experimental results received on the basis of DARPA-98 data, which generally confirm the feasibility of the approach and its certain advantages.

On-Line Update of Situation Assessment Based on Asynchronous Data Streams

The subject of the paper is multi-agent architecture of and algorithmic basis for on-line situation assessment update based on asynchronous streams of input data received from multiple sources and having finite “life time”. A case study from computer network security area that is anomaly detection is used for demonstration.

Multi-agent and Data Mining Technologies for Situation Assessment in Security-related Applications

The paper considers one of the topmost security related problems that is situation assessment. Specific classification and data mining issues associated with this task and methods of their solution are the subjects of the paper. In particular, the paper discusses situation assessment data model specifying situation, approach to learning of situation assessment, generic architecture of multi-agent situation assessment systems and software engineering issues. Detection of abnormal use of computer network is a case study used for demonstration of the main research results.

Support for Analysis, Design, and Implementation Stages with MASDK

In spite of much research and development on agent-oriented software engineering methodologies and supporting software tools, the problem remains of topmost importance. Many efforts are still needed to make such methodologies and software tools practically applicable at an industrial scale. This paper proposes extension of the Gaia methodology with a formal specification language, making it possible to implement Gaia as a model-driven engineering process supported by a corresponding agent-based software development environment, MASDK 4.0. The paper outlines MASDK 4.0 through the extended Gaia, and demonstrates the technology supported by MASDK 4.0 on the basis of a fragment of a case study on autonomous air traffic control.

Transportation Logistics Services from Cloud

One of the remarkable recent business trends is shifting to cloud as more services as possible. This is peculiar for not only simple services like e-commerce, but also sophisticated ones making available, for the customers, to exploit SaaS (Software as Services) market model. The paper presents the developed abstract architecture of the SaaS transportation planning service. The core functionality of this architecture is generic model and associated protocol of auction -- based multi-agent resource allocation and scheduling procedure comprising standard phases of the auction managed by multiple generic policies. The latter is introduced as a standard object class that provides for flexibility of planning as well as reusability of the core planning software that is à critical property of the software implementing any web service.

Agent-based distributed decision-making in dynamic operational environments

The paper presents an approach and the supporting software tools for integration of intelligent multi-agent systems and the peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies to support the development of heterogeneous distributed decision making applications operating in dynamic ubiquitous environment. Particularly, the proposed technology integrates two software tools, MASDK 4.0 software tool and a P2P agent platform. MASDK 4.0 is provided with a graphical application specification language that supports the thorough and consistent conceptual analysis, detailed design, code generation and deployment of multi-agent systems applications including those operating in dynamic environments. P2P agent platform is a FIPA compliant middleware enabling transparent P2P interaction of agents operating in heterogeneous and ubiquitous environment. The platform is fully compatible with the multi-agent applications developed by MASDK 4.0. The combined application of MASDK 4.0 and P2P agent platform is demonstrated by a case study of the air traffic control and emergency management. In this case study a model of autonomous air traffic control is implemented by a set of distributed intelligent agents. This application is a typical example of a modem agent-based distributed decision making system operating in a dynamic P2P environment.

Development tools for open agent networks

Distributed peer-to-peer computing in which no centralized control server is assumed, and in some cases, client-server architecture is actually rejected, has been the subject of intense investigations in the field of information technologies in the recent years. This new paradigm of designing large-scale distributed intelligent systems attracts attention of both researchers and developers of industrial applications. This paradigm provides qualitatively new capabilities, especially for designing systems consisting of a large number of autonomous instances which can appear and disappear from the system at any time instant. The idea of integration of these systems (hereinafter, P2P systems for brevity) and multi-agent technologies is especially attractive; it realizes the advantages of both paradigms, namely, the maturity of technologies and the relative simplicity of creation of multi-agent systems consisting of autonomous intelligent programs which interact via a high-level language, as well as the openness, the scalability, and the reliability of P2P systems. This integration seems quite natural. Indeed, multi-agent systems is the set of autonomous intelligent programs; therefore, the structuring of these programs into the network whose nodes interact directly without any intermediate server is the natural step if the technology of P2P interactions has been well developed using a high level language. However, for practical realization of this idea, it is necessary to make one very important step, namely, to develop mechanisms for agent interaction on a semantic level, when agents query some functionalities (services) from each other, possibly, not knowing a priori what particular agents can provide the queried functionality (service) and whether these agents exist in the network. The application of the agent variant of the architecture, the service oriented architecture, another new paradigm of construction of information systems, provides practical capability of realization of mechanisms of semantic interaction of agents of the open P2P network. This work represents the P2P agent platform developed by the authors whose instances installed on the network nodes above the standard P2P service form the distributed meta-knowledge knowledge base intended for organization of semantic P2P interaction of agents. Application-oriented agents placed on the network nodes above the instances of the agent platform receive the capability of semantic interaction. The program realization of the platform is supported by the mechanism of P2P interaction of agents using messages with standard formats and pair communications of the network nodes. The role, functions, and the essence of the processes of operation of this platform is explained using two applications as the examples; these applications are sufficiently important from the practical point of view. They are used for verification of basic solutions presented in this work.