System and method for providing highly-reliable coordination of intelligent agents in a distributed computing system

In a distributed computing system including a plurality of agents, each agent in the plurality of agents operative for executing a task in furtherance of a goal autonomous from a host system associated with each agent, the goal being a solution to a problem defined by one agent in the plurality of agents or the host system associated with the one agent, a method for enhancing the reliability of an interaction between two agents in the plurality of agents, comprising:

• initiating a session between a first agent in the plurality of agents and a second agent in the plurality of agents, the first agent and the second agent each including a portion of a distributed fault tolerance structure containing data conditioning, testing, and control functions to carry out fault tolerance operations between the first agent and the second agent, the session having the goal;
• providing to the first agent information related to the second agent, the information related to the second agent comprising information that describes an expected behavior of the second agent;
• at the first agent, acceptance testing information related to the session to detect whether the information related to the session is inconsistent with the expected behavior of the second agent, the failure of the acceptance test being indicative of a fault in the session;
• and
• in response to a failure of the acceptance test, initiating a fault tolerance procedure making use of the distributed fault tolerance structure to diagnose a cause of the fault, to create a fault recovery plan, and to execute the fault recovery plan.

A computer-readable medium in a distributed computing system having computer-executable instructions for enhancing the reliability of interactions between agents in the plurality of agents, comprising:

• monitoring an interactive step of an interaction between a first agent in a plurality of agents in the distributed computing system and a second agent in the plurality of agents in the distribute computing system, each agent in the plurality of agents being operative for executing a task in furtherance of a goal, each agent being further operative to execute the task independent of a host system associated with the agent, the goal being a solution to a problem defined by one agent in the plurality of agents or the host system associated with the one agent, the interactive step involving a use of information sent from the first agent to the second agent;
• testing the validity of the interactive step being performed in the interaction through the use of fault tolerance techniques distributed among at least the first agent and the second agent by comparing the information sent from the first agent to the second agent with other information that describes an expected behavior of the first agent or the host system associated with the first agent;
• informing the first agent and the second agent that the interactive step being performed is invalid;
• and
• assisting the first agent and a second agent to reperform the interactive step with a re-expressed version of the information sent from the first agent to the second agent.