Multi-Agent Architecture for Developing Cooperative E-Business Applications

This article describes a multi-agent approach that provides solutions to the problems raised during the development of cooperative e-business applications. This approach is organized in the form of cooperative application groups representing the different parts of a company. Agent coordinators orchestrate the cooperative work of these groups. The most requested functionalities inside the company and those offered to the external world can be exported as Web Services. These Web Services are described with DAML-based Web Service ontology (OWL-S) and managed with an intermediate agent called Web Service Finder Agent. The proposed solution provides a new vision of the cooperation context where the companies and their partners share knowledge and offer functionalities as agents and Web Services.