Towards a preventive maintenance approach for multi-agent applications

Abstract

Software preventive maintenance is an important software activity which consists to include modifications and updations in order to prevent future serious issues of the software. In the context of multi-agent systems, such activity is completely omitted. The inherent specificities of multi-agent systems (e.g., autonomy, pro-activity, reactivity, adaptability, etc.) make their maintenance difficult task to achieve. We propose, in this paper, a conditional preventive maintenance approach for multi-agent applications. The proposed approach is based on MAS quality measurements and uses Aspect-Oriented programming. The proposed approach consists of three major steps, (i) measuring two quality metrics (autonomy and sociability) of the running application in a dynamic and continuous way by using AspectJ code and comparing them with minimum thresholds previously defined by the designer, (ii) warning the maintainer in case of detection of abnormal regression of the MAS quality, and (iii) intervention of the maintainer for preserving the application quality and thus avoid potential damage. The proposed approach is supported by a software tool we developed called PMMAS (Preventive Maintenance of Multi-Agent Systems). The approach and the associated tool are illustrated using a concrete case study.