Mandrake: multiagent systems as a basis for programming fault-tolerant decentralized applications
We conceptualize a decentralized software application as one constituted from autonomous agents that communicate via asynchronous messaging. Modern software paradigms such as microservices and settings such as the Internet of Things evidence a growing interest in decentralized applications. Construc...
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Published in | Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems Vol. 36; no. 1; p. 16 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York
Springer US
2022
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | We conceptualize a
decentralized
software application as one constituted from
autonomous
agents that communicate via
asynchronous
messaging. Modern software paradigms such as microservices and settings such as the Internet of Things evidence a growing interest in decentralized applications. Constructing a decentralized application involves designing agents as independent local computations that coordinate successfully to realize the application’s requirements. Moreover, a decentralized application is susceptible to faults manifested as message loss, delay, and reordering. We contribute
Mandrake
, a programming model for decentralized applications that tackles these challenges without relying on infrastructure guarantees. Specifically, we adopt the construct of an
information protocol
that specifies messaging between agents purely in causal terms and can be correctly enacted by agents in a shared-nothing environment over nothing more than unreliable, unordered transport. Mandrake facilitates (1) implementing protocol-compliant agents by introducing a programming model; (2) transforming protocols into fault-tolerant ones with simple annotations; and (3) a declarative policy language that makes it easy to implement fault-tolerance in agents based on the capabilities in protocols. Mandrake’s significance lies in demonstrating a straightforward approach for constructing decentralized applications without relying on coordination mechanisms in the infrastructure, thus achieving some of the goals of the founders of networked computing from the 1970s. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1387-2532 1573-7454 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10458-021-09540-8 |