911 Agent-Based Infrastructure for Dynamic Composition of Grid Services Matthew Adigun University of Zululand, South Africa Johnson Iyilade University of Zululand, South Africa Klaas Kabini University of Zululand, South Africa Chapter 39 ABSTRACT The service-oriented computing paradigm is based on the assumption that existing services can be put together in order to obtain new composite services. This chapter focuses on how peer-to-peer architectures based on multi-agent systems can be used to build highly dynamic and reconfigurable infrastructure that support dynamic composition of grid services. The chapter starts by providing an overview of key technologies for SOC. It then introduces dynamic service composition and challenges of composing grid services. The authors further motivate for Multi-agent system approach in SOC and why it becomes important in service composition. They then present our research effort, AIDSEC, an agent-based infrastructure for dynamic service composition, describing its architecture, implementation and comparison with some related work in the literature. In addition, the chapter raises some emerg- ing trends in SOC and the particular challenges they pose to service composition. They conclude by suggesting that a solution based on multi-agent system is required for composing services that possess capabilities of autonomy, reliability, flexibility, and robustness. INTRODUCTION The Service Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm is currently a promising methodology for engineer- DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-686-5.ch039 ing applications in both scientific and industrial communities (Bhatia, 2005). It promises a world of distributed services that are loosely coupled to flexibly create dynamic business processes and agile applications that may span many organizations and computing platforms. Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.