FIPA has developed a collection of standards related to this architecture. Shared membership between OMG and FIPA and this fortuitous timing makes it possible for OMG and FIPA specifications to become well aligned. FIPA normative specifications primarily address domain generic platform agent interfaces. FIPA uses informative domain specific scenarios in a formal way to validate their platform interfaces and supply information to potential users of their specifications. OMG does not currently have an agent reference architecture nor an established body of work in the agent area.
Agents are likely to become more important in systems development in the coming years.
FIPA's new agent reference architecture will develop well-defined abstract architectures and map these to concrete instantiations. OMG specifications may provide a good basis for these instantiations, providing services such as naming, object transport and messaging. In addition, there may be agent specific services that OMG must support. It is important to co-ordinate these efforts in order to ensure that there is a good synergy between the two specification efforts. FIPA has adopted UML and IIOP as required standards.