SAGE and Its Application to Inter-company EC

Ryusuke Masuoka

NetMedia Laboratory

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.

Outline

ＳＡＧＥ and Facilitators Functions of Facilitators Implementation Internal Workings Experiments and Performance Latest Developments

SAGE Project

Smart Agent Environment for software agents: Agents communicate in ACL (Agent Communication Language)

Integrates information from disperse and/or legacy data sources through agentification

Facilitator helps interoperation between agents through translation, brokerage, and other services

Applications

Inter-company EC Consumer EC (Virtual Mall) Online databases integration Knowledge Management

SAGE： Francis

An application of virtual catalogs to inter-company EC

Next step for “WitWeb,” an inter-company EC service To deal with multiple servers

Recycling legacy product databases Wrapping them into agents

Architecture of SAGE:Francis

HTML etc.

ACL

SQL etc.

Facilitator ファシリテータFacilitator

WitWeb Database

Database Agent

User Agent

Browser

Wholesaler Database

Database Agent

User Agent

Browser

ProducerDatabase

Database Agent

User Agent

WholesalerDatabase

Database Agent

User Agent

BrowserBrowser

Functions of Facilitators (1)

Delegation based on: (Un) Advertisement

– Category– Agent capability– Range

Keyword Database User Authentication

Partial Solution by facilitators

Functions of Facilitators (2)

Message handling Waiting and merging Post Processes (sorting and limiting)

Ontology translation Tool planned for translation info creation

Agent as a program

Agent Process

Agent Core

KQML Library

April Communication Library

April Communication Server(ACS)

OuterResources

ACSs on other machines

User Agent

Agent Core

User Manager

April Communication Library

KQML Library

KIF Message Manager

KQML Engine

(with Generator/Parser)

Web Browser Web Server

Java Applet CGI Program

Facilitator

Inferrence Engine

April Communication Library

KQML Library

KQML Engine

Agent Core

Session Manager

Database Agent

Database(DBMS)

Agent Core

KIF/SQL Converter

April Communication Library

KQML Library

KQML Engine

Message FlowUser Agent(Retailers)

FacilitatorDB Agent(Wholesalers)

WholesalerDatabase

queryforwarded queries

SQL queries

results

results

unadvertise /advertise

merged results

Translation Information

(translation 'standard.database.kif 'fukuoka.database.kif (sentence-translation '(Item-name ?x ?value) '(Commodity_name ?x ?value) ))

(translation 'standard.database.kif 'fukuoka.database.kif (sentence-translation '(Ctgry-code ?x "(Apple)0100020002") '(Ctgry-code ?x "1106003310523012") ))

Translation

(and (Ctgry-name ?x ?Ctgry-name) (Ctgry-code ?x "(Apple)0100020002") (Item-name ?x ?Item-name) (Price ?x ?Price) (and (>= ?Price 1000) (=< ?Price 3000)))

(and (Ctgry-name ?x ?Ctgry-name) (Ctgry-code ?x "1106003310523012") (Commodity_name ?x ?Item-name) (Price ?x ?Price) (and (>= ?Price 1000) (=< ?Price 3000)))

Test Configuration

FacilitatorFacilitatorAllegro CL on Solaris 2Allegro CL on Solaris 2

Oracle DatabaseOracle DatabaseOracle 7.2 on WindowsNTOracle 7.2 on WindowsNT

Database AgentDatabase AgentKawasaki MarketKawasaki Market

Java on Windows95Java on Windows95

BrowserBrowser

Java AppletJava Applet

WWW ServerWWW Server

CGI ScriptCGI Script User AgentUser AgentJava on Solaris 2Java on Solaris 2

Access DatabaseAccess DatabaseMS Access on Windows95MS Access on Windows95

Database AgentDatabase AgentFukuoka MarketFukuoka Market

Java on Windows95Java on Windows95

User Interface (1)

User Interface (2)

Performance

Elapsed Time CPU Time

User agent 0.07 + 1.54

Facilitator 0.18 + 0.16 0.3

Database agent 2.32 ~ 0.7

Latest Developments

Adopted an inference engine Multi-module, multi-thread safe, cache

Functions of Facilitators implemented Unadvertise User Authentication Keyword Database Partial Solution Sorting and limiting

Summary

We have implemented an inter-company EC prototype system based on SAGE, which will be ready for deployment next April.