BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0 ID:: ncstrl.dartmouthcs//TR2001-386 ENTRY:: January 30, 2001 ORGANIZATION:: Dartmouth College, Computer Science TITLE:: Mobile-Agent versus Client/Server Performance: Scalability in an Information-Retrieval Task TYPE:: Technical Report (paper) REVISION:: 1 AUTHOR:: Gray, Robert S. AUTHOR:: Kotz, David AUTHOR:: Peterson, Ronald A. AUTHOR:: Gerken, Peter AUTHOR:: Hofmann, Martin AUTHOR:: Chacon, Daria AUTHOR:: Hill, Greg AUTHOR:: Suri, Niranjan DATE:: January 2001 RETRIEVAL:: For a paper copy, email RETRIEVAL:: For a paper copy, write to Technical Report Librarian Department of Computer Science Dartmouth College 6211 Sudikoff Laboratory Hanover, NH 03755-3510 USA RETRIEVAL:: Compressed Postscript at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR2001-386.ps.Z RETRIEVAL:: PDF at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR2001-386.pdf ABSTRACT:: Mobile agents are programs that can jump from host to host in the network, at times and to places of their own choosing. Many groups have developed mobile-agent software platforms, and several mobile-agent applications. Experiments show that mobile agents can, among other things, lead to faster applications, reduced bandwidth demands, or less dependence on a reliable network connection. There are few if any studies of the scalability of mobile-agent servers, particularly as the number of clients grows. We present some recent performance and scalability experiments that compare three mobile-agent platforms with each other and with a traditional client/server approach. The experiments show that mobile agents often outperform client/server solutions, but also demonstrate the deep interaction between environmental and application parameters. The three mobile-agent platforms have similar behavior but their absolute performance varies with underlying implementation choices. NOTE:: Revised version appeared in Mobile Agents 2001. See here. END:: ncstrl.dartmouthcs//TR2001-386