Software integration using a dynamic wrapper agent

  • Authors:

  • Miriam A. M. Capretz;Mary C. Hryb

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

  • Venue:
  • ICAI'05/MCBC'05/AMTA'05/MCBE'05 Proceedings of the 6th WSEAS international conference on Automation & information, and 6th WSEAS international conference on mathematics and computers in biology and chemistry, and 6th WSEAS international conference on acoustics and music: theory and applications, and 6th WSEAS international conference on Mathematics and computers in business and economics
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

Many application software packages still in use today are legacy systems which were developed decades ago in languages which are now considered obsolete. Yet, with proper maintenance and enhancements, these systems continue to perform their necessary functions effectively. These are not likely to be replaced any time soon, but present a restriction as they provide little interoperability in today's open environment. The option of replacing these systems to keep pace with ever changing needs is daunting, costly and may even be unnecessary. Instead, incorporating the services of these systems into an open, cooperative, distributed environment will not only extend their life and services but will also make them available to future systems which have not yet been created. Agent technology has been successfully used to provide legacy execution when embedded within the agent context. In order that legacy services become available to an extended clientele in the agent environment, a dynamic service providing connectivity to the legacy system is proposed in this paper. The focus of this solution is a wrapper agent that is able to create dynamic connections to various legacy applications on behalf of client agents as the need arises. It is proposed that the feasibility of the wrapper agent service depends on the agent's ability to internalize events and respond according to its goals and belief base.