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Java-basedMobileAgents
Software agents are semi-independent
programs which perform a variety of functions on behalf of the user.
There is particular interest in Mobile Agents, which can travel across
networks to do their job. This project will focus on the creation
of 2 specific types of mobile agents which can hop between machines to
1) collect and store data and 2) harvest the data from where it was stored.
The first agent will travel to a host machine and store some information
about the environment or some other data, then travel to another machine
to perform the same function, and so on. The second agent will track
the first, gather information of interest and send it to the user.
ProjectDescription
This project shows how mobile agents can be used to track
the sources of harmful viruses that have infected a file sent by an e-mail
attachment. When a file is found to be infected from an attachment,
the agent will called on by the anti-virus software. The agent will
be given a file name, which it will then search for the file's source and
all destinations of this particular file. The agents are extremely
beneficial because they are self-reliant. They require no interference
or instructions, from the user. Therefore, they decrease the amount
of work for the user, while increasing the usablity for the computer.
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Week
1
&
2
We attended presentations given by graduate students
and their advisors. Our job was to listen closely and decide if the
project would be interesting and challenging enough for us to choose it.
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Week3
This week I met with my mentor and he explained to me
what he wanted to accomplish with mobile agents and how he would like to
be able to use Java to implement them. Basically I was given a more
specific description of this project.
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Week4
My task this week was to research mobile agents.
I found numerous on-line research papers that were very useful. I
discovered that mobile agents are fairly new to the IT field. While
doing my research, I came up with an idea of how I could use my skills
to program the agents. I also began looking through my Java books.
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Week5
I tried to write a couple of Java programs. This
was very difficult at first because I had to get used to how Java works.
But once I figured it out it wasn't so bad. Of course I wrote the
basic "Hello World", but I also found a test on-line that I used to create
a couple of more programs. They all compiled and executed correctly.
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Week6
This week I have to write the programs that will be given
to the mobile agents to execute. One is supposed to be able to find
all copies of the file on the hard drive and another is supposed
to be able to search through the mailbox and find the source and all destinations
of the file. This is going to be my most difficult task. My
whole project depends on these programs working correctly.
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Week7
I have to combine my Java programs with the agents, which
are IBM Aglets. The aglets will work as long as my Java programs
are working. So this is another major task. Once they cooperate,
my work is almost done.
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Week8
I will begin preparing for my final
presentation.
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