Using Coloured Petri Nets to Compare Mobile Agent Design Patterns

AbstractConcurrent distributed systems modelling is a complex task. When we add mobility, the scenario is still worse, as specific problems are added. Petri nets is a largely used formalism to model and analyze complex systems, specially distributed and concurrent ones. Petri nets models are executable, allowing the simulation of abstract specifications. For this reason, Petri nets have been widely used as a validation and specification tool. This paper presents results of a performance comparative study of three mobile agents design patterns. The Itinerary, Star-Shaped and Branching migration patterns were investigated as solutions to a distributed information retrieval system. The three solutions were modelled with timed Coloured Petri Nets. The models were validated using simulation and occurrence graph analysis techniques. Experiments were conducted using further simulations and data were collected in order to evaluate the performance of each design pattern. The obtained data allow us to conclude that, for the studied scenarios, the Branching Pattern presents the the best performance