BIGpedia - Software agent - Encyclopedia and Dictionary Online

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In computer science, a software agent is a piece of autonomous, or semi-autonomous proactive and reactive, computer software. Many individual communicative software agents may form a multi-agent system.

To be considered an agent, a software object must be a self-contained program that is capable of making independent decisions and taking actions to satisfy internal goals based upon its perceived environment.

Contents

Examples

user agent - for browsing the World Wide Web
mail transfer agent - for serving e-mail
SNMP agent
DAML
daemons in Unix-like systems. See the mascot for BSD systems. CTSS first named daemons; see also Maxwell's demon.
In Unix-style networking servers, httpd is an HTTP daemon which implements the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol at the root of the World Wide Web
Management agents used to manage telecom devices

The definition of agent processing can be approached from two interrelated directions:

internal state processing and ontologies for representing knowledge
interaction protocols - standards for specifying communication of tasks

Agent systems are used to model real world systems with concurrency or parallel processing.

External links

http://www.agentland.com/ - Commercial site
http://fipa.org/ - Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents
http://www.msci.memphis.edu/~franklin/AgentProg.html - University of Memphis, Department of Mathematical Sciences paper entitled "Is it an Agent, or just a Program?: A Taxonomy for Autonomous Agents"
http://agtivity.com/ - Focuses on turning the construction and deployment of Software Agent Technology into a science rather than folklore and ad-hoc art and craft
http://agtivity.com/aglinks.htm - Extensive list of web-based resources for Software Agent Technology