System-Level Issues in Agent Based Distributed Computing
                            (Abstract)
                    (Full paper available from
       http://www.cs.umn.edu/~tripathi/DartmouthWorkshop.ps))

                 Anand Tripathi and Neeran Karnik
                   (tripathi|karnik@cs.umn.edu)
                  Department of Computer Science
          University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Recently the interest in agent based  distributed  computing  using
mobile programs has increased very sharply due the widespread avai-
lability and use of the Internet and the large potential for build-
ing  agent-based distributed computing applications in the Internet
domain. The recent development of languages  such  as   Telescript,
Java,  and  Obliq, which support program mobility,  is an indicator
of the emerging trend in transportable programs. The utility of the
agent  paradigm in comparison with other widely used paradigms such
as message-passing and remote procedure call has  been  established
in the past by other researchers.

The primary focus of our work is  on  the  system-architecture  and
language  level  issues  for agent-based distributed computing.  We
believe that the advances in distributed object technology over the
past  10 years, such as the CORBA model, provide an adequate system
architecture basis for  agent-based  applications.  An  agent-based
application  system  can  be  built  as a collection of distributed
objects, some of which are mobile. This paper identifies the system
architecture components for supporting agent-based distributed com-
puting.  It establishes interrelationships between the elements  of
an  agent-based  system, such as "engines", "agent meeting places",
and the components of a distributed object management system  based
on  the  CORBA  model. The paper also identifies the various issues
and requirements in supporting the agent paradigm on such an object
based  distributed system.  These requirements are identified based
on the needs arising from several different viewpoints related  to:
object  mobility,  fault  tolerance and status monitoring,  client-
level control and management of its mobile agents,  mechanisms  for
parallel  execution  and  coordination  of  agents,  multithreading
within an agent, and security and protection of information.