Agent-Based Peer-to-Peer Service Networks: A Study of Effectiveness and Structure Evolution

We study peer-to-peer service networks consisting of autonomous agents who seek and provide services. To fulfill its local needs, an agent attempts to discover and select information services by contacting others. Other agents can potentially help it by giving referrals to guide its search. Each agent autonomously decides whom to contact for a service and whom to provide a service or a referral. Service networks evolve as the agents change their neighbors to improve how their needs are fulfilled. If an agent autonomously decides to, it may cache some responses from other (information) services. Thus our service networks differ significantly from traditional peer-to-peer networks. We study the behavior and evolution of agent-based service networks in the presence of caching. We observe that even a small cache improves agents’ success in discovering needed services and enables a few initial service providers to serve the information needs of many. Caching induces clustering of agen...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Yathiraj B. Udupi, Pinar Yolum, Munindar P. Singh
• Keywords: Agent-based Service Networks, ATAL 2004, Peer-to-peer Service Networks, Service Networks