Service based integration of Grid and Multi-Agent Systems models

The GRID and MAS (Multi-Agent Systems) communities believe in the potential of GRID and MAS to enhance each other because they have developed significant complementarities. Thus, both communities agree on the ”what ” to do: promote an integration of GRID and MAS models. However, even if the ”why ” to do it has been stated and assessed, the ”how ” to do it is still a research problem. The paper addresses this problem by means of a service oriented approach. We present the concept of service at the intersection of GRID and MAS i.e., how an integration of these domains may enhance the realisation of dynamically generated services based on conversations: Services are exchanged (i.e., provided and used) by agents through GRID mechanisms and infrastructure. We firstly introduce a novel formalisation to describe GRID and MAS key concepts. These concepts are directly influenced by OGSA (Open Grid Service Architecture) and the STROBE agent communication and representation model developed for dynamic service generation. This formalisation intends to represent the respective domain ontologies and the relations between those concepts. Secondly, we use this formalisation as a tool to map GRID and MAS concepts in order to suggest directions for the conception, design and implementation of an integrated model supporting both agents and Grid services