Robustness Challenges in Peer-to-Peer Agent Systems

Peer-to-peer systems, and in particular peer agent systems within organizations and in open electronic markets, have a promise for improved distribution of information and services and increasing overall performance and fault-tolerance. Nevertheless, these advantages come at a price. The complexity of communication, and in time of computation, increases. Further, failure of weak nodes running agents, which can be addressed by the peer-to-peer architecture, introduces another overhead. In addition to complexity issues, peer-to-peer networks, be their members agents or humans, lack in their ability to enhance trust and security, and are vulnerable to attacks. These shortcomings of peer-to-peer agent systems must be addressed to promote the adoption of such systems. This paper discusses advantages and weaknesses of peer-to-peer agent systems, and the effect these have on overall system robustness. Some solution directions are pointed at as well.