The e-business scenario, generally speaking, can be considered as an opportunity for enterprises to extend their market to a wide region. Moreover, Multi-agent Systems (MASs) are exploited to support the development of this opportunity among firms. In particular, the e-business and the MAS approach are very strictly linked, especially if we look at the Business-to-Business (B2B) applications based on the e-marketplaces. The paper presents a MAS architecture to sustain a catalogue-based e-marketplace by using workflow management methodologies for the design activities, the agent-based technologies and the implementation phases, and open source IT tools for the software platform development. Subsequently, the formalised e-marketplace is linked to a production planning algorithm to support the negotiation stage among the involved agents. Finally, a discrete event simulation environment is utilised to validate the proposed MAS architecture and, using an appropriate test model, to evaluate the performances of the negotiation protocol.
A Multi Agent System Architecture for Business to Business Applications
RENNA, PAOLO
2009-01-01
Abstract
The e-business scenario, generally speaking, can be considered as an opportunity for enterprises to extend their market to a wide region. Moreover, Multi-agent Systems (MASs) are exploited to support the development of this opportunity among firms. In particular, the e-business and the MAS approach are very strictly linked, especially if we look at the Business-to-Business (B2B) applications based on the e-marketplaces. The paper presents a MAS architecture to sustain a catalogue-based e-marketplace by using workflow management methodologies for the design activities, the agent-based technologies and the implementation phases, and open source IT tools for the software platform development. Subsequently, the formalised e-marketplace is linked to a production planning algorithm to support the negotiation stage among the involved agents. Finally, a discrete event simulation environment is utilised to validate the proposed MAS architecture and, using an appropriate test model, to evaluate the performances of the negotiation protocol.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
