Approach for managing mobile agents in networks

摘要

An approach for managing mobile agents in a network generally comprises configuring a mobile agent in a secure manner such that the mobile agent will automatically terminate itself if the mobile agent cannot communicate with a specified entity before moving, or the mobile agent cannot successfully communicate with a specified entity within a specified period of time. According to another embodiment, if a management process cannot communicate with a mobile agent within a specified period of time, then the management process attempts to cause the termination of the mobile agent. The management process may contact another management process that has the ability to terminate the mobile agent and request that other management process to cause the termination of the mobile agent. According to other embodiment, the management process may cause the creation and dispatch of a “hunter-killer” mobile agent configured to locate and cause the termination of other mobile agents.

主权项

1. A method for managing a mobile agent process of a plurality of mobile agent processes in a network comprising:
the mobile agent process, of the plurality of mobile agent processes, sending, to a management process configured to manage moving any of the plurality of mobile agent processes to any of a plurality of network elements, a communication relating to the mobile agent process moving from a first network element in the network to a second network element of the plurality of network elements in the network; the mobile agent process detecting whether the mobile agent process received from the management process a response to the communication relating to the mobile agent process moving from the first network element in the network to the second network element in the network; in response to detecting that the mobile agent process received from the management process the response to the communication relating to the mobile agent process moving from the first network element in the network to the second network element in the network and detecting that the response to the communication includes an authorization for the mobile agent process to move from the first network element to the second network element, causing the mobile agent process to be moved from the first network element in the network to the second network element in the network; and in response to detecting that the mobile agent process did not receive from the management process the response to the communication relating to the mobile agent process moving from the first network element in the network to the second network element in the network, causing the mobile agent process itself to be terminated; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.