الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Recent times have seen exciting new developments in computer networking. Applications like the World Wide Web have made computer networks such as the Internet available to users outside of computer science departments all over the world. Information servers offering all sorts of interesting data are cropping up, and, as researchers are trying to find ways of reliable electronic payment, the net will soon be important as ”Virtual Marketplace”. Yet the sheer amount of data available to users in such a network will be difficult to handle. How will they be able to locate the information they need? How are they going to find the best offer for some service they require? One possible solution brought forward to help in this situation consists of ”Mobile Agents” - autonomous programs that move about the network on behalf of their owners while searching for information. This chapter proposes the notion that ”Mobile Agent” technology can be a significant aid in the rapid formation of the information systems. The adoption of Java as the de facto language for mobile agent environments, and its database connection capabilities provided by the JDBC interfaces, ensures mobile agents are fully capable of integrating with legacy data sources. |