Architectural Agents

Abstract: In a complex and ever changing software environment, controlling and coordinating asoftware system's architecture and its components have become an almost an impossibletask. It takes a lot of effort from a developer and even then it is not a foolproof plan. In thisMasters thesis, we introduce Architectural Agents. Architectural agents are specializedconfigurable components. They are the key elements that make a software environmentself-adaptive. Should there be any problem in the software, the architectural agents havingmonitored the software architecture can know which component is having the problem andfix it.This thesis aims towards making software self-adaptive by using Architectural Agents.This can be achieved by combining two frameworks namely, Prism-MW and JADE. Eachof these frameworks have their own property that contribute towards achieving the goal ofthe thesis. Prism-MW decomposes a software into separate and easily manageablecomponents. JADE on the other hand, creates agents. Combining these two frameworksmeans using the agents to control the software components. This will make the softwareenvironment self-adaptive.We support our claims and theories by practically proving them.