A Performance Analysis of Multi-Agent Systems

In this paper, a performance analysis and a comparison of the Grasshopper and Jade agent platforms is presented. The analysis focuses on the measurement of average round trip times (RTT) needed for a circular exchange of messages, the data transferred during a certain period of time, and message overhead. Tests were performed with different message sizes and coding techniques and the obtained results are presented. A case study was conducted which includes a comparison of two versions of a multi-agent system, called Multi-Agent Remote Maintenance Shell (MARMS), based on two different agent platforms. Presented is a performance analysis of the executionof management operations on the two versions tested. The analysis focuses on two parameters: the time needed for operation completion and the traffic generated during execution.