ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of agents and related aspects like properties, taxonomy, architecture, and communications. It looks into the characteristics of agents essential for virtual enterprises. An agent-based system may contain one or more agents. Agents recurrently interact to share information and to perform tasks to achieve their goals. Communications are critical for agents to identify other agents and how they can coordinate, cooperate, or collaborate. Recently, the agent-oriented computing paradigm has gained popularity among researchers attempting to develop complex systems for business process management. The design of agent-based systems is driven by a number constraints, including autonomy, the need to interact, information overload, multiple interface, ensuring quality, adaptability, privacy concerns, search costs, and the need to track identity. The chapter describes a group of architectural patterns for agent-based e-business systems. These patterns relate to front-end e-business activities that involve interaction with the user, and delegation of user tasks to agents.
