ARC layer

The ARC layer is the middle layer in the DIET Agents architecture. It provides Application Reusable Components. These components provide functionality that is not essential to all applications, yet is useful to many.

The ARC layer provides:

• An infrastructure for reusable components:
  • Jobs and event managers provide a framework for reusable, plug & play agent behaviours.
  • Generic scheduling support enables agents to schedule future actions.
  • Retry strategies provide a modular way of handling failure.

• Reusable services and components:
  • Various implementations of remote communication: mirrors, message channels, carriers, datagrams.
  • A basic resource accounting framework.
  • Various miscellaneous components: random walk, prioritised message handling.

• Basic debugging and visualisation support:
  • Event listeners can generate basic debugging output to console.
  • Agents can enable external control to allow outside control of their actions.
  • Agents can be visited to enable convenient control of groups of agents.