Jozef Winkowski

Resource management in a distributed multi-agent system

905

Abstract

A protocol of resource management in a multi-agent system is presented.

The system consists of a distributed set of agents, each of which runs locally on a computer in the network. The agent running on a computer is responsible for performing jobs initiated on this computer and for managing the local resources. Each job proceeds according to a program and it involves a number of indivisible pieces of work called tasks, each task to be done with the aid of resources of certain types. A resource is either a facility (a processor, a printer, etc.) or a unit of data (a file, a record, etc.).

The protocol of resource management is presented in the form of rules of a game of tasks for access to resources, in which the role of tasks play the respective agents. It guarantees mutual exclusion of tasks accessing the same resources and starvation freedom of tasks at a cost which is low when conflicts between tasks are rare.

Key words: computer, network, agent, multi-agent system, job, task, resource, allocation, competition, game, protocol, mutual exclusion, starvation freedom.