Why software agents are important: The lowdown

Not sure why software agents are important, when to use them or even what they are? You’ve come to the right place.

There is a good chance that your business already uses some agents which are taken for granted.

However it’s important to understand why software agents are important and what they do, to determine if you should be using more or fewer.

What are software agents?

Software agents are intelligent processes designed to act independently of user interaction, working with other programs to detect, report and respond to changes.

They are automatic – once they are set up, you can leave them alone and trust them to do their job by themselves.

They are interactive – they combine with other software processes to perform functions and relay information to the user.

They are also perceptive – they can discover new information and react to their environment where necessary.

A good example of a software agent is a spam filter – it is autonomous and works with other programs to find and delete unwanted emails.

Why software agents are important:

They perform roles in complex systems which would take staff much longer to manage themselves.

Indeed, a key reason why software agents are important is they can help eradicate human error.

Time spent with software agents mainly just involves setting them up – defining their expected behaviour, outlining the tasks they must achieve and by when.

After that, they act automatically, quickly and to a consistent standard.

In contrast, staff would require significantly longer to perform similar actions, particularly those of monitoring and surveillance agents, or data-mining agents.

Similarly, since agents’ processes are automatic and consistent, they can be more reliable than staff.

As long as they have been set up in the right way, they will carry out their mission exactly as specified, without error.

How many software agents should an IT system use?

It’s tempting to use lots of software agents, to automise as many processes as possible and just forget about them afterwards.

However this is unfortunately not always the best strategy. The trick is to only use as many as you need, no more and no fewer.

Agents should only be incorporated into a system if they are the right fit.

Careful analysis is necessary to make sure an IT system uses the right ones. Trying to take on too many agents could have negative implications for bandwidth, memory and processing power.

When should software agents be used?

Agents are most commonly used to monitor and maintain programs which involve communication between separate applications, or the sending and receiving of data. Therefore they are often used for applications which use the internet.

Strategically speaking, a good time for a business to consider using new software agents is after a comprehensive audit of its IT systems.

Once these are running as effectively and efficiently as possible, this is the prime time to implement software agents to manage the systems and ensure they maintain their optimum status.

There could be plenty more discussion about why software agents are important. For further information about this subject, or any other IT support issue please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team.