Performance Analysis of Mobile Agents for Filtering Data Streams on Wireless Networks Dartmouth Technical Report TR2000-366 David Kotz Guofei Jiang Robert S. Gray George Cybenko Ronald A. Peterson Date: May 2000 URL (compressed postscript): (392KB) URL (PDF): (380KB) Abstract: Wireless networks are an ideal environment for mobile agents, because their mobility allows them to move across an unreliable link to reside on a wired host, next to or closer to the resources they need to use. Furthermore, client-specific data transformations can be moved across the wireless link, and run on a wired gateway server, with the goal of reducing bandwidth demands. In this paper we examine the tradeoffs faced when deciding whether to use mobile agents to support a data-filtering application, in which numerous wireless clients filter information from a large data stream arriving across the wired network. We develop an analytical model and use parameters from our own experiments to explore the model's implications. Note: In August 2000 a revised version appeared in the International Workshop on Modeling and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems (MSWiM 2000). In October 2000 a further revised version appeared as Dartmouth Technical Report TR2000-377, and was submitted to the journal Mobile Networks and Applications (ACM MONET).