  A primary motivation for our research in digital ecosystems is the desire to
exploit the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems. Ecosystems are
thought to be robust, scalable architectures that can automatically solve
complex, dynamic problems. However, the computing technologies that contribute
to these properties have not been made explicit in digital ecosystems research.
Here, we discuss how different computing technologies can contribute to
providing the necessary self-organising features, including Multi-Agent
Systems, Service-Oriented Architectures, and distributed evolutionary
computing. The potential for exploiting these properties in digital ecosystems
is considered, suggesting how several key features of biological ecosystems can
be exploited in Digital Ecosystems, and discussing how mimicking these features
may assist in developing robust, scalable self-organising architectures. An
example architecture, the Digital Ecosystem, is considered in detail. The
Digital Ecosystem is then measured experimentally through simulations,
considering the self-organised diversity of its evolving agent populations
relative to the user request behaviour.
