Mobile agents for distributed decision support systems

This article focuses on the performance of Java based mobile agents using format translation via an intermediary XML based format. Our goal was to develop and verify the performance of a lightweight, mobile agent based solution that would allow strong security, portability and access to heterogeneous data resources from a mobile platform to facilitate exchange of data between simulation models and data resources. We have developed two types of agents: a mobile agent that functions as a server for queries in SQL and converts the query results into XML documents and a stationary agent acting as a client for query forwarding and conversion of received documents into text files readable by a client application. We have tested the performance of the agents in a distributed simulation scenario and established that the agents can be used to connect heterogeneous simulation models and other applications, improving their connectivity and usability.