FLEXIBLE NETWORKS - BASIC CONCEPTS AND ARCHITECTURE

The concept of flexible system is long being used by many researchers, aiming to solve some particular problem of adaptation. The problem is viewed differently in different situations. In this paper, we first g ive a set of definitions and specifications to generalize this concept applicable to any system and in particular to communication networks. Through these definitions we will formalize, what are the conditions a system should satisfy to be called as a Flexible Communication Syste m. The rest of the paper we formalize the concepts of flexible informa tion network, and propose an agent oriented architecture that can real ize it.