Dynamic re-configurable transaction management in AgentTeam

With respect to data format and data consistency, the spectrum of DDBM ranges from management of relational data in distributed database management systems (DDBMS) to the management of non-relational data in information retrieval systems. On the other hand, in many networked application domains users need to access any type of data, preferably with a single tool. However, DDBM is still a challenging research area that involves bridging syntactic and semantic heterogeneity of data as well as of functionality, especially in the bottom-up design of a new DDB. Since, existing DDBM systems were usually built by focusing on the implementation of some dedicated protocols for DDBM, they are inflexible for major modifications or exchange of the protocols. In addition, their software architecture usually does not comply with well-known design paradigms, which could facilitate the maintenance of the software system. We present an agent-based approach for flexible DDBM, where independent DDBM protocols are modular exchangeable for lest purposes. This capability of the DDBMS provides for flexibility against protocol heterogeneity and enables the DDBMS to communicate with new DBMSs to be included, by combining or adapting its protocols at run time. For instance, different DDB consistency levels are possible for different DDBs with the same DDBMS. In this work, the design of DDBM in form of a multi-agent system of the AgentTeam framework is discussed, particularly the dynamic reconfigurable transaction management model. Furthermore, the CourseMan prototype is described, which is implemented in form of a test-bed that provides a homogeneous environment for testing different DDBM protocols, upon heterogeneous DBMSs.