A IEEE APPROACH

FACILITATING STORAGE

AND RETRIEVAL OF

MULTIMEDIA DATA

FROM THE DISTRIBUTED

MULTIMEDIA DATABASE

USING MOBILE AGENTS

BASED ON HOST

DATABASE

MMMMOBILE OBILE OBILE OBILE AAAAGENTS IN GENTS IN GENTS IN GENTS IN

DDDDISTRIBUTED ISTRIBUTED ISTRIBUTED ISTRIBUTED MMMMULTIMEDIA ULTIMEDIA ULTIMEDIA ULTIMEDIA

DDDDATABASE ATABASE ATABASE ATABASE SSSSYSTEMSYSTEMSYSTEMSYSTEMS

The size of networks is increasing rapidly and this

fact is not straitened to the internet alone. Many

intra and inter–organization networks are affected

by this trend, too. A side effect of this growth is the

increase of nework traffic.

This development leads to new challenges and we

have to think about new technologies. Mobile agent

systems are one answer to these challenges.

Mobile agents are an emerging technology

attracting interest from the fields of distributed

systems, information retrieval, electronic

commerce and artificial intelligence.

A mobile agent is an executing program that can migrate during execution from

machine to machine in a heterogeneous network.

On each machine, the agent interacts with stationary service agents and other

resources to accomplish its task, returning to its home site with a final result when

that task is finished. Mobile agents are particularly attractive in distributed

information-retrieval applications.

By moving to the location of an information resource, the agent can search the

resource locally, eliminating the transfer of intermediate results across the network

and reducing end-to-end latency. Mobile agents are goal-oriented, can

communicate with other agents, and can continue to operate even after the

machine that launched them has been removed from the network.

The mobile feature enables the agent to travel to the host where the data are

physically stored. This is obviously of great interest in a distributed multimedia

database systems where we have in most cases large binary objects. This Project

integrates mobile agent technology in a distributed database system.

The advantage of this approach is the combination of mobile agent features (e.g.

autonomy, mobility, enhancement of functionality) and database services such as

recovery, transaction handling, concurrency and security.

This projects aims at facilitating storage and retrieval of multimedia data

from the distributed multimedia database using mobile agents based on host

database which will provide the result to the user upon request.

HISTORY OF MOBILE AGENTS:

As network information resources grow in size, it is often most efficient to process

queries and updates at the site where the data is located.This processing can be

accomplished by using a traditional client-server network interface, which

constrains the client to the set of queries supported by the server, or requires the

server to send all data to the client for processing.

The former is inflexible; the latter is inefficient. Transportable agents(Mobile

agents),which support the movement of the client computation to the location of

the remote resource, have the potential to be more flexible and more efficient.

Agents are regarded as a very promising development in software-development,

especially in connection with the explosion of information on the Internet. Agents

are autonomous pieces of software that act on behalf of a principal (user) so as to

reach a goal or solve a problem for their user.

For example, agents might filter information for their user, deciding which news

articles, documents, Web-sites, etc. are interesting for their user on the basis of a

user-profile that stores the user’s interests.

Traditional client-server network applications run fixed software on the client and

the server while using the network to transfer messages and data among these

hosts. For example, take the typical Web browser. The browser runs at a client

connected to the Internet. The browser sends document requests to Web servers

running on other hosts connected to the Internet.

These servers process the request and return the document to the client. Recently,

a new technology for network applications is emerging. This new approach, called

agent-based computing, involves programs themselves being sent across the

network from the client to the server or vice versa.

A host on which an agent can execute after being transferred over the network will

be called an agent host.An example of agent technology is using mobile filters to

improve response time for downloading multimedia over the Web.

DEFINING THE AGENT

Software Agent:

Agents can be loosely defined as programs that assist people and act on their

behalf. This is what we prefer to call the “end-user perspective” of software agents.

Definition of an Agent (End-User Perspective)

An agent is a program that assists people and acts on their behalf. Agents function

by allowing people to delegate work to them. Agents come in myriad different types

and in many settings.

They can be found in computer operating systems, networks, databases, and so

on. A property shared by all agents is that fact that they live in some environment.

They have the ability to interact with their execution environment, and to act

asynchronously and autonomously upon it. No one is required either to deliver

information to the agent or to consume any of its output. The agent simply acts

continuously in pursuit of its own goals.

Definition of an Agent (System Perspective)

An agent is a software object that is situated within an execution environment.

Possesses the following mandatory properties:

1) Reactive - senses changes in the environment and acts accordingly to those

changes;

2) Autonomous - has control over its own actions;

3) Goal driven - is pro-active;

4) Temporally continuous - is continuously executing;

5) and may possess any of the following orthogonal properties:

6) Communicative - able to communicate with other agents;

7) Mobile - can travel from one host to another;

8) Learning - adapts in accordance with previous experience;

Different types of Agents

Agents can be roughly subdivided into two types. Stationary and Mobile Agents.

Agents mostly tend to be mobile, but do not have to.

Definition of a Stationary Agent

Stationary Agents execute only in the system space they are created in. If these

Agents need information that resides outside their own domain, other Agents or

communication mechanisms have to be called by them.

Definition of a Mobile Agent

Mobile agents are autonomous software entities that can halt themselves, ship

themselves to another agent-enabled host on the network, and continue execution,

deciding where to go and what to do along the way.

EXISTING MODEL

Existing Model is local System computation i.e. each system , where the data is

stored should have separate database Management System or the application

takes lot of time and CPU cycle to retrieve Information ( Multimedia Data ) .

To better understand mobile agents and their behavior, we must first look briefly at

traditional network architectures. The following figure illustrates the network

behavior of a typical client/server application.

The typical client/server application communication

A client/server application typically consists of two pieces: a client piece and a

server piece. Often, the client and server pieces are on separate machines and

they communicate over a common network.

When the client needs data or access to resources that the server provides, the

client sends a request to the server over the network. The server in turn sends a

response to the request. This “handshake” occurs again and again in a traditional

client/server architecture. Each request/response requires a complete round trip

across the network.

PROPOSED MODEL

The Proposed System is using Agents can able to do the same Application with

less amount of Time and CPU cycle. Now compare the client/server architecture

described to the mobile agent architecture illustrated in the next figure.

The mobile agent paradigm (Architecture)

Just as in the client/server architecture, there is a client piece and a server piece.

The difference lies in how the two communicate. When the client in the mobile

agent architecture needs data or access to a resource that the server provides, the

client doesn’t talk to the server over the network.

Instead, the client actually migrates to the server’s machine. Once on the server’s

machine, the client makes its requests of the server directly. When the entire

transaction is complete, the mobile agent returns home with the results.

ADVANTAGES OF USING MOBILE AGENTS

First, mobile agents solve the client/server network bandwidth problem. By moving

a query or transaction from the client to the server, the repetitive request/response

handshake is eliminated.

Second, agents reduce design risk. Agents allow decisions about the location of

code (client vs. server) to be pushed toward the end of the development effort

when more is known about how the application will perform.

In fact, the architecture even allows for changes after the system is built and in

operation. Third, agent architectures also solve the problems created by

intermittent or unreliable network connections. Agents can be built quite easily that

work “off-line” and communicate their results back when the application is “on-line”.

MOBILE AGENT APPLICATIONS

Mobile agent’s applications are currently being developed and used by the

following industry segments

1. Industry

2. Government

3. Telecommunications systems

4. Personal digital assistants

5. Information management

6. On-line auctions

7. Service brokering

8. Contract negotiation

9. Air traffic control

10. Parallel processing

11. Computer simulation etc

FUNCTIONAL MODULES

S.No MODULES TOOLS USED

1. Client Application HTML/DHTML/JavaScript

(Or) Java Swing / AWT

2. Server Agent (SA) Java, Jini, JMF

3. Query Agent (QA) Java, Jini, JMF

4. Database Agent (DA) Java, Jini, JMF

MODULES INVOLVED THE PROJECT

DEVELOPEMENT PHASES

Module / Functional Description

The Project is Functionally divided into 4 modules

They are:

• Client Application (CA)

• Server Side Agent (SA)

• Query Agent (QA)

• Database Agent (DA)

CLIENT APPLICATION (CA)

In the Client Application, there is a Client Agent, for communicating with the Server

Agent (SA). User request will be received from the Client Agent’s user interface

and forwarded to the Server Agent (SA). The Client Agent is also responsible for

presenting the query results to the user.

The Client Application supports Agents with the following missions (1) search

MPEG audio files and MPEG video files by user’s specification. (2) stream and

play audio files and video files on a remote location. It can decode two types of file

formats including MPEG I Layer III audio and MPEG I video.

SERVER SIDE AGENT (SA)

The SA is responsible for dispatching client’s requests to the Query Agent (QA) or

Database Agent (DA). If the client requests is a query it will be forwarded to the

Query Agent or if it is someother, it will be based on the clients request.

QUERY AGENT (QA)

The Query Agent (QA) is responsible for making query to find out the site

containing the requested multimedia data.

DATABASE AGENT (DA)

If a client’s request is a list of multimedia data, it will be forwarded to the Database

Agent (DA) for indexing and updating the multimedia meta-data database.

Moreover the Database Agent (DA) will be asked to update the database if a

multimedia data is removed from a particular site.

METADATA

Metadata represent information about the data in individual databases and data

repositories. They may represent relationships between individual media objects.

These metadata descriptions may be extracted using various mappings/extractors

associated with the various types of digital data

DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

� Java1.3

� Data Base Software

� JINI Frame Work

� Windows Operating System

� Required Network Infrastructure

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

• Intel Pentium IV Processor

• 256 MB RAM

• 40GB Hard Disk

• Color Monitor

• Key Board, Mouse