Performance evaluation of an agent-based resource management infrastructure for grid computing

Resource management is an important infrastructure in the grid computing environment. Scalability and adaptability are two key challenges in the implementation of such complex software systems. In this work we introduce a new model for resource management in a metacomputing environment using a hierarchy of homogeneous agents that has the capability of service discovery. The performance of the agent system can be improved using different combinations of optimisation strategies. A modelling and simulation environment has been developed in this work that enables the performance of the system to be investigated. A simplified model of the resource management infrastructure is given as a case study and simulation results are included that show the impact of the choice of performance optimisation strategies on the overall system performance.