Implementation Model for Agents with Layered Architecture in a Transactional Database Environment

One of the reasons for attending to agent technology is the ever-growing complexity of information systems and the increasing difficulty to foresee and plan for all poten- tially arising situations. However, the full use of the whole strength of the technology, as well as the research efforts, still remains restricted to a narrow area of Distributed Arti- ficial Intelligence. Unfortunately, this means that some pressing issues of the practical applications remain outside the scope of agent research. One of those issues is robust- ness in unreliable error-prone or involuntarily interacting environments. On the other hand, database technology has for a long time learned to deal with robustness by devel- oping a suitable technology, transactions. In this paper, an implementation model for agents with layered architecture in a transactional database environment is proposed. The model overcomes the non-orthogonality in implementing the various agent functions together with the limitations imposed on concurrent execution of agent actions. Two examples are provided to demonstrate our objective.