creators_name: Grotsev, Denis creators_name: Iliasov, Alexei creators_name: Romanovsky, Alexander creators_id: "Alexei Iliasov" creators_id: alexander.romanovsky@ncl.ac.uk editors_name: Petre, Luigia editors_name: Sere, Kaisa editors_name: Troubitsyna, Elena editors_id: Kaisa.Sere@abo.fi editors_id: Elena.Troubitsyna@abo.fi type: book_section datestamp: 2011-08-02 10:53:00 lastmod: 2011-08-02 13:15:03 metadata_visibility: show title: Formal Stepwise Development of Scalable and Reliable Multiagent Systems ispublished: pub subjects: Event-Bsemantics subjects: Refinement subjects: deploy_method_comp subjects: deploy_method_proof subjects: deploy_method_reqevo subjects: deploy_method_resil full_text_status: public abstract: This chapter considers the coordination aspect of large-scale dynamically-reconfigurable multi-agent systems in which agents cooperate to achieve a common goal. The agents reside on distributed nodes and collectively represent a distributed system capable of executing tasks that cannot be effectively executed by an individual node. The two key requirements to be met when designing such a system are scalability and reliability. Scalability ensures that a large number of agents can participate in computation without overwhelming the system management facilities and thus allows agents to join and leave the system without affecting its performance. Meeting the reliability requirement guarantees that the system has enough redundancy to transparently tolerate a number of node crashes and agent failures, and is therefore free from single points of failures. The Event B formal method is used to validate the design formally and to ensure system scalability and reliability. date: 2011 date_type: published publisher: IGI Global pages: 17 refereed: TRUE isbn: ISBN13: 9781609607470 book_title: Dependability and Computer Engineering: Concepts for Software-Intensive Systems official_url: http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/titledetails.aspx?titleid=49576 citation: Grotsev, Denis and Iliasov, Alexei and Romanovsky, Alexander (2011) Formal Stepwise Development of Scalable and Reliable Multiagent Systems. In: Dependability and Computer Engineering: Concepts for Software-Intensive Systems. IGI Global. ISBN ISBN13: 9781609607470 document_url: http://deploy-eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/318/1/ComplimentaryContent-denis.pdf