  This paper presents a new approach in the management of mobile ad hoc
networks. Our alternative, based on mobile agent technology, allows the design
of mobile centralized server in ad hoc network, where it is not obvious to
think about a centralized management, due to the absence of any administration
or fixed infrastructure in these networks. The aim of this centralized approach
is to provide permanent availability of services in ad hoc networks which are
characterized by a distributed management. In order to evaluate the performance
of the proposed approach, we apply it to solve the problem of mobile code
localization in ad hoc networks. A comparative study, based upon a simulation,
of centralized and distributed localization protocols in terms of messages
number exchanged and response time shows that the centralized approach in a
distributed form is more interesting than a totally centralized approach.
