We present Ecomobile, a mobile agent infrastructure based on ecosystem principles, serving as a middleware for distributed network-centric applications such as network management algorithms. First we identify the main characteristics of conventional multi-agent systems based upon different coordination and navigation models. Thereafter we describe Ecomobile as a reactive system consisting of a self-regulating population of mobile agents. We also present simulation results examining the ecosystem behaviour and propose a viable deployment within a FIPA-compliant environment using the Jade agent platform. Finally, we report about applications for the creation and management of novel value-added services in optical networks (presented in previous publications).