Showing papers on "Differentiated service published in 2004"

QoS computation and policing in dynamic web service selection

Abstract: The emerging Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm promises to enable businesses and organizations to collaborate in an unprecedented way by means of standard web services. To support rapid and dynamic composition of services in this paradigm, web services that meet requesters' functional requirements must be able to be located and bounded dynamically from a large and constantly changing number of service providers based on their Quality of Service (QoS). In order to enable quality-driven web service selection, we need an open, fair, dynamic and secure framework to evaluate the QoS of a vast number of web services. The fair computation and enforcing of QoS of web services should have minimal overhead but yet able to achieve sufficient trust by both service requesters and providers. In this paper, we presented our open, fair and dynamic QoS computation model for web services selection through implementation of and experimentation with a QoS registry in a hypothetical phone service provisioning market place application.

Method of interference management for interference/collision avoidance and spatial reuse enhancement

Abstract: A method called the evolvable interference management (EIM) method is disclosed in this patent for avoiding interference and collision and increasing network throughput and energy efficiency in wireless networks. EIM employs sensitive CSMA/CA, patching approaches, interference engineering, differentiated multichannel, detached dialogues, and/or spread spectrum techniques to solve the interference and QoS problems. EIM-based protocols can considerably increase network throughput and QoS differentiation capability as compared to IEEE 802.11e in multihop networking environments. Due to the improvements achievable by EIM, the techniques and mechanisms presented in this application may be applied to obtain an extension to IEEE 802.11 to better support differentiated service and power control in ad hoc networks and multihop wireless LANs. New protocols may also be designed based on EIM.

Method and apparatus for policy based class service and adaptive service level management within the context of an internet and intranet

Abstract: A method and apparatus for robustly enhanced Class of Service (COS) at the application layer permits highly flexible privilege based access and enables implementation of complex policies and rules for classification and differentiation of services. Differentiation facilitates categorization of traffic to permit flexible design and implementation of multiple Class of Service levels.

Performance analysis of IEEE 802.11e contention-based channel access

Abstract: The new standard IEEE 802.11e is specified to support quality-of-service in wireless local area networks. A comprehensive study of the performance of enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA), the fundamental medium access control mechanism in IEEE 802.11e, is reported in this paper. We present our development of an analytical model, in which most new features of the EDCA such as virtual collision, different arbitration interframe space (AIFS), and different contention window are taken into account. Based on the model, we analyze the throughput performance of differentiated service traffic and propose a recursive method capable of calculating the mean access delay. Service differentiation functionality and effectiveness of the EDCA are investigated through extensive numerical and simulation results. The model and the analysis provide an in-depth understanding and insights into the protocol and the effects of different parameters on the performance.

Web services on demand: WSLA-driven automated management

Abstract: In this paper we describe a framework for providing customers of Web services differentiated levels of service through the use of automated management and service level agreements (SLAs). The framework comprises the Web Service Level Agreement (WSLA) language, designed to specify SLAs in a flexible and individualized way, a system to provision resources based on service level objectives, a workload management system that prioritizes requests according to the associated SLAs, and a system to monitor compliance with the SLA. This framework was implemented as the utility computing services part of the IBM Emerging Technologies Tool Kit, which is publicly available on the IBM alphaWorksTM Web site.

Service capability and performance of logistics service providers

Abstract: Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study empirically examines if there exist different types of logistics service providers (LSPs), and whether the types differ in service performance. The study results suggest that there are four discernable types of LSP, according to the service capability displayed by each type, and that differences in service performance exist between the types. The implications of the results are discussed and suggestions for further research in LSPs are offered.

Composing Web services: a QoS view

Abstract: An Internet application can invoke several services--a stock-trading Web service, for example, could invoke a payment service, which could then invoke an authentication service. Such a scenario is called a composite Web service, and it can be specified statically or established dynamically. Dynamic composition of Web services requires service consumers to discover service providers that satisfy given functional and nonfunctional requirements including cost and QoS requirements such as performance and availability. In previous columns, I've examined how quality of service (QoS) comes into play for service providers, consumers, and parallel transactions. Here, I'll show how it fits into composite Web services.

Smart monitors for composed services

Abstract: Service-based approaches are widely used to integrate heterogenous systems. Web services allow for the definition of highly dynamic systems where components (services) can be discovered and QoS parameters negotiated at run-time. This justifies the need for monitoring service compositions at run-time. Research on this issue, however, is still in its infancy.We investigate how to monitor dynamic service compositions with respect to contracts expressed via assertions on services. Dynamic compositions are represented as BPEL processes which can be monitored at run-time to check whether individual services comply with their contracts. Monitors can be automatically defined as additional services and linked to the service composition.We present two alternative implementations of our monitoring approach: one based on late-binding and reflection and the other based on a standard assertion system. The two implementations are exemplified on a case study.

Interposed proportional sharing for a storage service utility

Abstract: This paper develops and evaluates new share-based scheduling algorithms for differentiated service quality in network services, such as network storage servers. This form of resource control makes it possible to share a server among multiple request flows with probabilistic assurance that each flow receives a specified minimum share of a server's capacity to serve requests. This assurance is important for safe outsourcing of services to shared utilities such as Storage Service Providers.Our approach interposes share-based request dispatching on the network path between the server and its clients. Two new scheduling algorithms are designed to run within an intermediary (e.g., a network switch), where they enforce fair sharing by throttling request flows and reordering requests; these algorithms are adaptations of Start-time Fair Queuing (SFQ) for servers with a configurable degree of internal concurrency. A third algorithm, Request Windows (RW), bounds the outstanding requests for each flow independently; it is amenable to a decentralized implementation, but may restrict concurrency under light load. The analysis and experimental results show that these new algorithms can enforce shares effectively when the shares are not saturated, and that they provide acceptable performance isolation under saturation. Although the evaluation uses a storage service as an example, interposed request scheduling is non-intrusive and views the server as a black box, so it is useful for complex services with no internal support for differentiated service quality.

System and methods for provisioning a service for a communication device

Abstract: A system for provisioning an associated service for a device is described. The associated service allows a user to access a primary service and, optionally, one or more additional services through a mobile handheld device. The associated service is provisioned entirely through the handheld device. A system for provisioning the associated service receives provisioning requests from the device and creates and configures the associated service and, if needed, the primary service. The primary and additional services may be e-mail services, calendar services, contact management services or other data services. The associated service may be used simultaneously with different types of primary and additional services.

Method and apparatus for provisioning and monitoring internet protocol quality of service

Abstract: An architecture, design, and realization for providing Quality of Service (QoS) to Internet Protocol (IP) networks based on a three-class differentiated service scheme where the service provider uses a resource management system and a schedule optimizer to enable the optimal use of bandwidth and buffer resources at each node or router along the various links between the ingress and egress points in a network. The resource reservation system checks to determine if sufficient bandwidth resources are available along the path requested by the customer for a particular class. The schedule optimizer ensures that sufficient buffer resource allocations and parameter settings are made to optimally reach the predetermined QoS criteria for each of the three classes. The system also contains a mechanism supporting resource reservations providing additional resources along alternative paths if the selected path links fail in the network.

Dynamic network resource brokering

Abstract: A method and system for identifying and mapping the business-driven IT policies to network resources and automatically brokering resources accordingly is disclosed. A software-based client/server architecture may be used, in an exemplary embodiment, to provision network server, processor, and storage resources according to the policies, service level objectives, and/or service level agreements needed to meet IT infrastructure customer needs with appropriately differentiated service.

sFlow: towards resource-efficient and agile service federation in service overlay networks

Abstract: Existing research work towards the composition of complex federated services has assumed that service requests and deliveries flow through a particular service path or tree. Here, we extend such a service model to a directed acyclic graph, allowing services to be delivered via parallel paths and interleaved with each other. Such an assumption of the service flow model has apparently introduced complexities towards the development of a distributed algorithm to federate existing services, as well as the provisioning of the required quality in the most resource-efficient fashion. To this end, we propose sFlow, a fully distributed algorithm to be executed on all service nodes, such that the federated service flow graph is resource efficient, performs well, and meets the demands of service consumers.

Method and apparatus for the use of dynamic XML message formats with web services

Abstract: A service proxy is used to automatically supply the message-format parameters required for incoming message communications to a web-service provider from client applications through a message-conversion system that the web-service provider previously sets up. For outgoing messages from the web service to client businesses, the service proxy automatically supplies the required message-format parameters according to service policies that client businesses set up previously through the web-service provider's web-site interface. The format of client application messages is predefined for a web service policy, and a configuration interface is established for context variables and message format variables. This service profile is recalled in order to apply the proper message format parameters for a web service request.

Service components for managing the life-cycle of service compositions

Abstract: Web services are becoming the prominent paradigm for distributed computing and electronic business. This has raised the opportunity for service providers and application developers to develop value-added services by combining existing web services. However, current web service composition solutions do not address software engineering principles for raising the level of abstraction in web-services by providing facilities for packaging, re-using, specializing and customizing service compositions.In this paper we propose the concept of service component that packages together complex services and presents their interfaces and operations in a consistent and uniform manner in the form of an abstract class definition, Service components are internally synthesized out of reused, specialized, or extended complex web services and just like normal web services are published and can thus be invoked by any service-based application. In addition, we present an integrated framework and prototype system that manage the entire life-cycle of service components ranging from abstract service component definition, scheduling, and construction to execution.

Service framework with local proxy for representing remote services

Abstract: In an information appliance system 100, a user device 108 comprises a client platform (200, FIG. 5) that includes a service framework (235, FIG. 5) to discover and connect with a variety of services, both remote and local, transient and persistent, and to disconnect from them when they are no longer of interest or become unavailable. The service framework 235 provides a standard, consistent, simplified way for services to make themselves available and for service-using entities to locate and connect with the services of interest to them. From the perspective of the client platform 200, all services, whether local or remote, are presented as local services to the application. Each remote service is represented as a local service through the use of a local proxy that insulates the service user from the complexities of communicating with a remote server. Various methods of operating a service framework are also described.

Ethernet differentiated services

Abstract: A network includes an edge node configured to define the per-hop behaviors using a set of bits in an Ethernet header of a frame and a core node configured to receive the frame and to forward the frame according to the per-hop-behaviors. The network can also include a defined set of differentiated service classes, each differentiated service class associated with the set of per-hop behaviors, indicated in the set of priority bits. The network classifies the Ethernet frame based on at least one of a set of priority bits or information in at least one protocol layer in the frame header of the Ethernet frame and determines a per-hop behavior based on the classification.

Modeling service-based multimedia content adaptation in pervasive computing

Abstract: Pervasive computing applications allow users to access information from anywhere while traveling and using variety of devices Heterogeneity and limitation of resources involved in this application demand adaptation of content according to the current context (device, user, network etc) The dynamic nature of adaptation mechanisms together with emerging opportunities of Web Service technology provides new approach of adaptation which is service-based While this approach would provide a valuable service for the end customer, the service provider, and the content provider, it is important to have an architectural framework which is simple, scalable, flexible and interoperable Moreover, in order to provide a complete service-based content negotiation and adaptation solution, we must have a model, or a tool, that allows defining environmental constraints, mapping them to appropriate adaptation service requirements and finding an optimal service configurationIn this paper, we present service-based content adaptation architecture, enabling the use of third-party adaptation services and a novel content negotiation and adaptation model The proposed architectural framework is validated through a prototype

Analysis and Management of Web Service Protocols

Abstract: In the area of Web services and service-oriented architectures, business protocols are rapidly gaining importance and mindshare as a necessary part of Web service descriptions. Their immediate benefit is that they provide developers with information on how to write clients that can correctly interact with a given service or with a set of services. In addition, once protocols become an accepted practice and service descriptions become endowed with protocol information, the middleware can be significantly extended to better support service development, binding, and execution in a number of ways, considerably simplifying the whole service life-cycle. This paper discusses the different ways in which the middleware can leverage protocol descriptions, and focuses in particular on the notions of protocol compatibility, equivalence, and replace-ability. They characterise whether two services can interact based on their protocol definition, whether a service can replace another in general or when interacting with specific clients, and which are the set of possible interactions among two services.

Contract based enterprise application services

Abstract: The invention includes systems and methods of facilitating interaction between service consumers and services providers based on service contracts. These service contracts are established by considering preferences, capabilities or limitations of each service consumer and at least one characteristic of each service provider. Once the preferences, capabilities or limitations of a service consumer are determined these may be used to automatically established individualized service contracts with a variety of service providers. The services contracts may include contract terms relating to data format, communication protocol, security, data logging, load balancing, service level agreements, service quality, performance requirements, or the like.

Queuing for Expert Services

Abstract: We consider a monopolist expert offering a service with a 'credence' characteristic. A credence service is one where the customer cannot verify, even after purchase, whether the amount of prescribed service was appropriate or not; examples include legal, medical or consultancy services and car repair. This creates an incentive for the expert to 'induce service', that is, to provide unnecessary services that add no value to the customer, but that allow the expert to increase his revenues. We focus on the impact of an operations phenomenon on service inducement - workload dynamics due to the stochasticity of interarrival and service times. To this end, we model the expert's service operation as a single-server queue. The expert determines the service price within a fixed- and variable-rate structure and decides whether to induce service or not. We characterize the expert's combined optimal pricing and service inducement strategy as a function of service capacity, potential market size, value of service and waiting cost. We conclude with design implications of our results in limiting service inducement.

Method and system for enabling trust infrastructure support for federated user lifecycle management

Abstract: A method and a system are presented in which computing environments of different enterprises interact within a federated computing environment. Federated operations can be initiated at the computing environments of federation partners on behalf of a user at a different federated computing environment. A point-of-contact service relies upon a trust service to manage trust relationships between a computing environment and computing environments of federation partners. The trust service employs a key management service, an identity/attribute service, and a security token service. A federated user lifecycle management service implements federated user lifecycle functions and interacts with the point-of-contact service and the trust service.

On the monitoring of contractual service level agreements

Abstract: The goal of monitoring contractual service level agreements (SLAs) is to measure the performance of a service, to evaluate whether its provider complies with the level of quality of the service (QoS) that the consumer expects. The aim of this paper is to bring to the system designer's attention the fundamental issues that monitoring of contractual SLAs involves: SLA specification, separation of the computation and communication infrastructure of the provider, service points of presence, metric collection approaches, measurement service and evaluation and violation detection service. The paper develops an architecture and give reasons why currently it is practicable to offer guaranteed QoS only to consumers sharing Internet service providers (ISPs) directly with the service provider.

Reputation-based semantic service discovery

Abstract: Semantic grids need to support dynamic service discovery - to enable users to look for services based on their properties. Such properties generally include the interface provided by a service (such as message types supported) - but may also include other nonfunctional properties - such as service performance and cost. This requires the provision and recording of metadata about a service that is not supported by current registry services such as UDDI. A framework to facilitate reputation-based service selection in semantic grids is presented. The proposed framework has two key features that distinguish it from other work in this area. First, an adaptive reputation-aware service discovery algorithm is provided. Second, a service-oriented distributed reputation assessment algorithm is presented. The main components of the framework are described.

Eliciting service composition in a goal driven manner

Abstract: The connectivity generated by the Internet is opening opportunities of services composition. As a consequence, organizations are forming online alliances in order to deliver integrated value-added services. However, due to the lack of methodologies and tools, the development of such composite service across organizations is usually ad-hoc and poses problems especially in the identification, composition and orchestration issues. In this paper, we propose a goal driven approach to understand the needs of different organizations for a new added-value composite service and to model the cooperative process supporting this service provision in a declarative, goal driven manner. The goal model called Map, is then used for service elicitation, distribution and orchestration. The paper presents the approach and illustrates it with an e-government cooperative service.

PrudentExposure: a private and user-centric service discovery protocol

Abstract: Service discovery as an essential element in pervasive computing environments is widely accepted. Much active research on service discovery has been conducted, but privacy has been ignored and may be sacrificed. While it is essential that legitimate users should be able to discover services of which they have credentials, it is also necessary that services be hidden from illegitimate users. Since service information, service provider's information, service requests, and credentials to access services via service discovery protocols may be sensitive, we may want to keep them private. Existing service discovery protocols do not solve these problems. We present a user-centric model, called Prudentexposure, as the first approach designed for exposing minimal information privately, securely, and automatically for both service providers and users of service discovery protocols. We analyze the mathematical properties of our model and formally verify our security protocol.

Alternative service management

Abstract: The invention provides management of alternative services in a communications system (1). A user equipment (300) requests a primary service at the communications network (10) during the setup of a communications session. In addition, at least one possible alternative service to use if the primary service is unavailable is suggested. Radio performance and signaling quality of the bearers of the primary and alternative service(s) are monitored. If the quality deteriorates, the network (10) issues a service change to a less quality demanding alternative service. If the quality subsequently improves, the network (10) can issue a fallback reversion, thus, changing service to a more preferred service, typically the requested primary service.