As distributed multimedia applications become more widely diffused, sy
stems for quality of service (QoS) management are increasingly essenti
al. In this paper we present an architecture for distributed QoS manag
ement based on software agents. We discuss the advantages of using age
nt technology in a problem inherently distributed and complex such as
QoS management. Besides introducing several negotiation and coordinati
on techniques among agents as fundamental properties for QoS managemen
t, it is argued in favor of decision making based on analytical and si
mulative modeling techniques. Furthermore, design and implementation i
ssues are discussed in detail and our Java-based platform for agent-ba
sed QoS management is introduced.