The paradigmatic shift from a Web of manual interactions to a Web of programmatic interactions driven by Web services is creating unprecedented opportunities for the formation of online business-to-business (B2B) collaborations. In particular, the creation of value-added services by composition of existing ones is gaining a significant momentum. Since many available Web services provide overlapping or identical functionality, albeit with different quality of service (QoS), a choice needs to be made to determine which services are to participate in a given composite service. This paper presents a middleware platform which addresses the issue of selecting Web services for the purpose of their composition in a way that maximizes user satisfaction expressed as utility functions over QoS attributes, while satisfying the constraints set by the user and by the structure of the composite service. Two selection approaches are described and compared: one based on local (task-level) selection of services and the other based on global allocation of tasks to services using integer programming.

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QoS-aware middleware for Web services composition

An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.

Intelligent Automated Assistant

In this Chapter, we imagine a decision maker (or a group of experts) trying to establish or examine fair procedures to combine opinions about alternatives related to different points of view.

Multiple criteria decision making

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides a flexible framework for service composition Using standard-based protocols (such as SOAP and WSDL), composite services can be constructed by integrating atomic services developed independently Algorithms are needed to select service components with various QoS levels according to some application-dependent performance requirements We design a broker-based architecture to facilitate the selection of QoS-based services The objective of service selection is to maximize an application-specific utility function under the end-to-end QoS constraints The problem is modeled in two ways: the combinatorial model and the graph model The combinatorial model defines the problem as a multidimension multichoice 0-1 knapsack problem (MMKP) The graph model defines the problem as a multiconstraint optimal path (MCOP) problem Efficient heuristic algorithms for service processes of different composition structures are presented in this article and their performances are studied by simulations We also compare the pros and cons between the two models

Efficient algorithms for Web services selection with end-to-end QoS constraints

A business process model (100) pertaining to an application product (102) is associated with a set of views that illustrate the realization of the business process in the appplication product (102). Further, the business process model is displayed to the user together with the set of views to enhance the user's understanding of the business process provided by the application product (102).

Method and apparatus to facilitate development of a customer-specific business process model

The process-driven composition of Web services is emerging as a promising approach to integrate business applications within and across organizational boundaries. In this approach, individual Web services are federated into composite Web services whose business logic is expressed as a process model. The tasks of this process model are essentially invocations to functionalities offered by the underlying component services. Usually, several component services are able to execute a given task, although with different levels of pricing and quality. In this paper, we advocate that the selection of component services should be carried out during the execution of a composite service, rather than at design-time. In addition, this selection should consider multiple criteria (e.g., price, duration, reliability), and it should take into account global constraints and preferences set by the user (e.g., budget constraints). Accordingly, the paper proposes a global planning approach to optimally select component services during the execution of a composite service. Service selection is formulated as an optimization problem which can be solved using efficient linear programming methods. Experimental results show that this global planning approach outperforms approaches in which the component services are selected individually for each task in a composite service.

/pdf/quality-driven-web-services-composition-1qps2is95d.pdf

Quality driven web services composition

A system and method for supporting Product Lifecycle Management over a distributed service network topology that connects a hierarchy of functional domains, each domain having a service ontology and one or more service composition schemas defined by the service ontology. Each service composition schema models a business process in its domain. Descriptions of services provided to each domain are published to a service repository by providers of the services, in conformity with one of the service composition schemas. There is a business process proxy provided by the service provider for each service description, which encapsulates for public access the internal processes of the service provider. The invention makes use of an event messaging protocol that enables service collaboration and ad-hoc workflow composition. Each business process is implemented by an ad-hoc workflow comprised of one or more tasks connected by one or more business rules. For each business process there is a business flow manager that dynamically composes ad-hoc workflow prior to execution and dynamically modifies the ad-hoc workflow as the business process executes. The business flow manager uses backward-chain inferencing and then forward-chain inferencing to generate the ad-hoc workflows, based on user identification of a target task. The business flow manager is able to stop execution of the workflow and regenerate a workflow for remaining tasks in response to events received over the network from service providers, and is also able to detect conflicts in the workflows at composition time and at execution time.

Method and apparatus for product lifecycle management in a distributed environment enabled by dynamic business process composition and execution by rule inference

A unified program analysis framework that facilitates the analysis of complex multi-language software systems, analysis reuse, and analysis comparison, by employing techniques such as program translation and automatic results mapping, is presented. The feasibility and effectiveness of such a framework are demonstrated using a sample application of the framework. The comparison yields new insights into the effectiveness of the techniques employed in both analysis tools. These encouraging results yield the observation that such a unified program analysis framework will prove to be valuable both as a testbed for examining different language analysis techniques, and as a unified toolset for broad program analysis.

Methods and arrangements for unified program analysis

An architecture, system, and method are provided for a commitment loop solution for on demand business activity management. A Business Performance Management (BPM) loop is defined as a set of nodes each relating to different tasks for processing performance management trigger data generated by a business entity in real time, where the beginning or sensing element of the loop is triggered by a token (representing a business event from a business process) and the ending or executing element provides a business action to be implemented by the business entity. The token is passed from node to node sequentially in a particular order around the loop. Processing of the data represented by the token is governed by policies, which can be changed dynamically and follow a life cycle. On demand business activity management of larger aggregates of business entities (i.e. enterprises and value chains) is achieved by extending this architecture by building upon the BPM loops of the component entities to form a BPM net, adding nodes as necessary. This architecture, system and method can be implemented at multiple levels of granularity from operational or tactical business activities to enterprise wide strategic activities.

Liangzhao Zeng

Papers

QoS-aware middleware for Web services composition

Quality driven web services composition

Method and apparatus for product lifecycle management in a distributed environment enabled by dynamic business process composition and execution by rule inference

Methods and arrangements for unified program analysis

Method and apparatus of on demand business activity management using business performance management loops