that the practice of this invention does not require a general purpose mapping between high level goals and topological characteristics it is sufficient for this invention to have the mapping be even so simple as a set of hand coded rules that apply to different predefined goals once it has determined the type of tuning to be done at block 230 the topology tuner agent 20 contacts at least some of the agents 40 in the system 10 and directs them to modify their relationships in a particular way this can be done in a multi cast fashion in which the topology tuner agent 20 sends the same message to all agents 40 at once or it may be done in a more individualized single cast fashion in which the agents 40 are contacted one by one and each one potentially receives a different recommendation from the topology tuner agent 20 fig4 shows a preferred method of carrying out this procedure after completing a tuning process or cycle the topology tuner agent 20 determines at block 240 whether re tuning is necessary re tuning is necessary in general to deal with two kinds of change both of which may occur at any time a the desired topology may change in such a way that the current.