Multi agent system architecture oriented Prometheus methodology design to facilitate
security of cloud data storage
ABSTRACT
Security plays an important role in the development of Multi Agent Systems (MAS).
However, a careful analysis of software development processes shows that the definition of
security requirements is, usually, considered after the design of the system. This is, mainly,
due to the fact that agent oriented software engineering methodologies have not integrated
security concerns throughout their developing stages. Designing a team of agents that can
work together toward a common goal is one of the challenges in the research area of agent-
oriented software engineering. Prometheus is an agent-oriented software engineering
methodology. The Prometheus Design Tool (PDT) is a graphical editor which supports the
design tasks specified within the Prometheus methodology for designing agent systems. The
tool propagates information where possible and ensures consistency between various parts of
the design. The main purpose of this paper is to design MAS architecture that can be used to
facilitate confidentiality, correctness assurance, availability and integrity of Cloud Data
Storage (CDS) or cloud data center. The proposed MAS architecture includes five types of
agents: Cloud Service Provider Agent (CSPA), Cloud Data Confidentiality Agent (CDConA),
Cloud Data Correctness Agent (CDCorA), Cloud Data Availability Agent (CDAA) and
Cloud Data Integrity Agent (CDIA).
Keyword: Agent-oriented methodology; Cloud computing; Cloud data storage; Multi agent
system; Prometheus design tool; Prometheus methodology; Security