Skip to main content

An Agent-Oriented Approach to Service Analysis and Design

  • Conference paper
Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems (PRIMA 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7057))

Abstract

The agent paradigm, with its new way of thinking about software systems as a collection of autonomous, flexible and robust agents, offers a promising solution for modelling and implementing distributed complex systems. Intelligent agents and services share a substantial number of key concepts such as autonomy, reactivity, loose coupling and strong encapsulation. There has been, however, little work on leveraging such a deep connection between agents and services. In this paper, we argue that agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) provides an important basis for service analysis and design at the business service level. In particular, we show how concepts and techniques in AOSE can be used to analyse and model business services in the context of service ecosystems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Paulson, L.D.: Services science: A new field for today’s economy. Computer 39(8), 18–21 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Sawatani, Y.: Research in service ecosystems. In: Proceedings of Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET 2007), Portland, USA, pp. 2763–2768 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Janssen, M., Wagenaar, R.: An analysis of a shared services centre in e-government. In: HICSS 2004: Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2004) - Track 5, p. 50124.2. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Barros, A.P., Dumas, M.: The rise of web service ecosystems. IT Professional 8(5), 31–37 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Ruokolainen, T., Kutvonen, L.: Managing interoperability knowledge in open service ecosystems. In: Proceedings of the 13th Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops, EDOCW, Auckland, New Zealand, pp. 203–211. IEEE (September 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Mathieson, I., Dance, S., Padgham, L., Gorman, M., Winikoff, M.: An open meteorological alerting system: Issues and solutions. In: Estivill-Castro, V. (ed.) Proceedings of the 27th Australasian Computer Science Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, pp. 351–358 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Burmeister, B., Arnold, M., Copaciu, F., Rimassa, G.: BDI-Agents for agile goal-oriented business processes. In: Padgham, Parkes, Müller, Parsons (eds.) Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2008), Estoril, Portugal, pp. 37–44 (May 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Monostori, L., Váncza, J., Kumara, S.: Agent based systems for manufacturing. CIRP Annals-Manufacturing Technology 55(2), 697–720 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Munroe, S., Miller, T., Belecheanu, R.A., Pěchouček, M., McBurney, P., Luck, M.: Crossing the agent technology chasm: Lessons, experiences and challenges in commercial applications of agents. Knowledge Engineering Review 21(4), 345–392 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Wooldridge, M., Jennings, N.R.: Intelligent agents: Theory and practice. The Knowledge Engineering Review 10(2), 115–152 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jennings, N.R.: An agent-based approach for building complex software systems. Communications of the ACM 44(4), 35–41 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Ghose, A.: Industry traction for MAS technology: would a rose by any other name smell as sweet. Int. J. Agent-Oriented Softw. Eng. 3(4), 397–401 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Cabri, G., Leonardi, L., Puviani, M.: Service-oriented agent methodologies. In: WETICE 2007: Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, pp. 24–29. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Padgham, L., Winikoff, M.: Developing intelligent agent systems: A practical guide. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2004) ISBN 0-470-86120-7

    Google Scholar 

  15. Georgeff, M.: Service orchestration: The next big challenge. DM Direct Special Report (June 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Luck, M., McBurney, P., Shehory, O., Willmott, S.: Agent Technology: Computing as Interaction (A Roadmap for Agent Based Computing). AgentLink (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Jennings, N.R., Sycara, K., Wooldridge, M.: A roadmap of agent research and development. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 1(1), 7–38 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M.: Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. In: Garijo, F.J., Boman, M. (eds.) MAAMAW 1999. LNCS, vol. 1647, pp. 1–7. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Henderson-Sellers, B., Giorgini, P. (eds.): Agent-Oriented Methodologies. Idea Group Publishing (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Bresciani, P., Perini, A., Giorgini, P., Giunchiglia, F., Mylopoulos, J.: Tropos: An agent-oriented software development methodology. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 8(3), 203–236 (2004)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Zambonelli, F., Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M.: Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 12(3), 317–370 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. DeLoach, S.A.: Engineering Organization-Based Multiagent Systems. In: Garcia, A.F., Choren, R., de Lucena, C.J.P., Giorgini, P., Holvoet, T., Romanovsky, A.B. (eds.) SELMAS 2005. LNCS, vol. 3914, pp. 109–125. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Cossentino, M.: From requirements to code with the PASSI methodology. In: Henderson-Sellers, B., Giorgini, P. (eds.) Agent-Oriented Methodologies, pp. 79–106. Idea Group Inc. (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Dam, K.H., Winikoff, M.: Comparing Agent-Oriented Methodologies. In: Giorgini, P., Henderson-Sellers, B., Winikoff, M. (eds.) AOIS 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3030, pp. 78–93. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Scheithauer, G., Augustin, S., Wirtz, G.: Describing services for service ecosystems, pp. 242–255 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Dhanesha, K.A., Hartman, A., Jain, A.N.: A model for designing generic services. In: SCC 2009: Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, pp. 435–442. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Lê, L.-S., Ghose, A., Morrison, E.: Definition of a Description Language for Business Service Decomposition. In: Morin, J.-H., Ralyté, J., Snene, M. (eds.) IESS 2010. LNBIP, vol. 53, pp. 96–110. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Winikoff, M.: Designing commitment-based agent interactions. In: IAT 2006: Proceedings of the IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology, pp. 363–370. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Yolum, P., Singh, M.P.: Flexible protocol specification and execution: applying event calculus planning using commitments. In: AAMAS 2002: Proceedings of the first International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 527–534. ACM, New York (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Cheong, C., Winikoff, M.: Hermes: a methodology for goal oriented agent interactions. In: AAMAS 2005: Proceedings of the Fourth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 1121–1122. ACM, New York (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  31. Bitner, M.: Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical surroundings and employee responses. Journal of Marketing 54(2), 69–82 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Papazoglou, M.P., Traverso, P., Dustdar, S., Leymann, F.: Service-oriented computing: State of the art and research challenges. Computer 40(11), 38–45 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Bratman, M.E.: Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1987)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Rao, A.S., Georgeff, M.P.: BDI-agents: from theory to practice. In: Proceedings of the First Intl. Conference on Multiagent Systems, San Francisco (1995)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Dam, H.K., Ghose, A. (2012). An Agent-Oriented Approach to Service Analysis and Design. In: Desai, N., Liu, A., Winikoff, M. (eds) Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems. PRIMA 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7057. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25920-3_36

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25920-3_36

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-25919-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-25920-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics