Showing papers on "Services computing published in 2015"

Fog Computing Micro Datacenter Based Dynamic Resource Estimation and Pricing Model for IoT

Abstract: Pervasive and ubiquitous computing services have recently been under focus of not only the research community, but developers as well. Prevailing wireless sensor networks (WSNs), Internet of Things (IoT), and healthcare related services have made it difficult to handle all the data in an efficient and effective way and create more useful services. Different devices generate different types of data with different frequencies. Therefore, amalgamation of cloud computing with IoTs, termed as Cloud of Things (CoT) has recently been under discussion in research arena. CoT provides ease of management for the growing media content and other data. Besides this, features like: ubiquitous access, service creation, service discovery, and resource provisioning play a significant role, which comes with CoT. Emergency, healthcare, and latency sensitive services require real-time response. Also, it is necessary to decide what type of data is to be uploaded in the cloud, without burdening the core network and the cloud. For this purpose, Fog computing plays an important role. Fog resides between underlying IoTs and the cloud. Its purpose is to manage resources, perform data filtration, preprocessing, and security measures. For this purpose, Fog requires an effective and efficient resource management framework for IoTs, which we provide in this paper. Our model covers the issues of resource prediction, customer type based resource estimation and reservation, advance reservation, and pricing for new and existing IoT customers, on the basis of their characteristics. The implementation was done using Java, while the model was evaluated using CloudSim toolkit. The results and discussion show the validity and performance of our system.

Digitalized Product-Service Systems in Manufacturing Firms: A Case Study Analysis: Linking Digital Systems with Physical Products to Create Novel Product-Service Bundles That Provide Services Independently and Proactively Can Enable Advanced Services and Promote Growth

Abstract: The term servitization has been used in recent years to describe a growing service orientation among product manufacturers, who are increasingly moving from simply selling products to offering supportive services tailored to the product (Baines et al. 2009; Wise and Baumgartner 1999; Vandermerwe and Rada 1988). These services range from traditional product-related services such as maintenance, repair, and training to advanced customer-oriented services (Lay 2014; Oliva and Kallenberg 2003; Mathieu 2001). Advanced services typically take the form of product-service systems (PSS), or physical products bundled with intangible services in a customized manner to fulfill highly individual customer needs (Tukker and Tischner 2006; Goedkoop et al. 1999). These innovative, individualized product-service bundles increase the value delivered to the customer and hence increase the competitiveness of the provider (Boyt and Harvey 1997). The move toward servitization has coincided with a rising trend toward digitalization, with manufacturers equipping products with intelligent digital systems that allow the products to operate independently of human intervention and communicate with other machines. As a logical consequence of the confluence of servitization with this trend toward intelligent machines, an increasing number of manufacturers are using digital systems to support their services (Minister and Meiren 2011), creating totally new industrial product-service offerings, such as comprehensive remote services that bring digital and physical systems together to pave the way for, for instance, availability guarantees. These new kinds of offerings may in turn lead to far-reaching reconfigurations of the mechanisms of value creation in manufacturing. Thus, manufacturers cannot afford to ignore these emerging forces, which have the power to completely reshape the industrial landscape. Companies that do not keep up with these developments may find themselves threatened with extinction in the near future, as competitors with more customized, responsive offerings gain advantage. Three practical case studies from our joint research projects on servitization show how companies can combine digital systems with PSS to harvest value and build competitive advantage. Services Innovation and Digitalization Previous studies of servitization have assumed that manufacturers move from product manufacturer to solution provider along a defined transformation path (Gebauer, Fleisch, and Friedli 2005; Gebauer 2004). This transition path is typically described as taking place in stages, with each stage offering different potentials for differentiation (see, for example, Matthyssens and Vandenbempt 2010; Gebauer, Bravo-Sanchez, and Fleisch 2008; Matthyssens and Vandenbempt 2008; Penttinen and Palmer 2007; Oliva and Kallenberg 2003; More 2001). At the end of the path, manufacturers offer innovative PSS, such as availability guarantees or build-operate-transfer (BOT) models, which increase customer value on the one hand and create competitive advantage for the provider on the other (Brady, Davies, and Gann 2005; Boyt and Harvey 1997). While PSS have been widely discussed--see Velamuri, Neyer, and Moslein (2011) for a review of the literature--the effect of the digital revolution on this servitization pathway has been less well explored. Most articles have dealt with the new challenges and impacts of digitalized services, focusing on how they differ from more traditional product-related services. What is missing in the literature is a comprehensive framework bringing together the emerging trends of servitization and digitalization in one conceptual structure. The integration of digitalization with services innovation has important implications for services. For instance, because digital services can be provided independent of manufacturer and customer location, traditional service characteristics like perishability and inseparability do not apply to digital service creation (Holtbriigge, Holzmuller, and von Wangenheim 2007). …

The fog computing service for healthcare

Abstract: Fog Computing is a new architecture to migrate some data center’s tasks to the edge of the server. The fog computing, built on the edge servers, is viewed as a novel architecture that provides the limited computing, storing, and networking services in the distributed way between end devices and the traditional cloud computing Data Centers. It provides the logical intelligence to the end devices and filters the data for Data Centers. The primary objective of fog computing is to ensure the low and predictable latency in the latency-sensitive of Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as the healthcare services. This paper discusses the characteristics of fog computing and services that fog computing can provide in the healthcare system and its prospect.

EnviroAtlas: A new geospatial tool to foster ecosystem services science and resource management

Abstract: In this article we present EnviroAtlas, a web-based, open access tool that seeks to meet a range of needs by bringing together environmental, economic and demographic data in an ecosystem services framework. Within EnviroAtlas, there are three primary types of geospatial data: research-derived ecosystem services indicator data in their native resolution, indicator data that have been summarized to standard reporting units, and reference data. Reporting units include watershed basins across the contiguous U.S. and Census block groups throughout featured urban areas. EnviroAtlas includes both current and future drivers of change, such as land use and climate, for addressing issues of adaptation, conservation, equity, and resiliency. In addition to geospatial data, EnviroAtlas includes geospatial and statistical tools, and resources that support research, education, and decision-making. With the development of EnviroAtlas, we facilitate the practice of ecosystem services science by providing a framework to track conditions across political boundaries and assess policies and regulations. EnviroAtlas is a robust research and educational resource, with consistent, systems-oriented information to support nationally, regionally, and locally focused decisions.

Anatomy of Successful Business Models for Complex Services: Insights from the Telemedicine Field

Abstract: Telemedicine services may improve the quality of life of individuals while also reducing the costs of service provisioning. They represent an important but as yet understudied type of complex servi...

A Reusable Software Component for Integrated Syntax and Semantic Validation for Services Computing

Abstract: Extensible Markup Language (XML) syntax and semantic validations are critical to the correct service transaction specification and service integration based on the existing distributed heterogeneous computing services. However, the current Schematron design and implementation based on Extensible Style sheet Language Transformations (XSLT) have limitations in terms of validation correctness and support for system integration. We propose an algorithm that integrates syntactic and semantic validations in order to overcome the aforementioned limitations. The syntactic validation is based on DTD and XSD and the semantic validation is based on the Schematron. The solution is illustrated by several use cases. Our contributions include combining syntax and semantic validations, designing and implementing a reusable software component to implement this integrated validation process, and supporting invoking this integrated validation through the more flexible observer pattern.

Resource configurations for services success in manufacturing companies

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate which resources and capabilities are most important to enable large manufacturers undergoing servitization to develop and deliver successful services. Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 155 UK-based manufacturers provided the basis for the study. Data analysis was undertaken using confirmatory factor analysis and multiple regression. Findings – In total, five constructs (“resource configurations”) which enable the development and delivery of successful services and a construct to measure services performance (“Success of Services”) were developed from the literature. A measurement model based on these constructs was empirically tested and verified. Two resource configurations; “Leaders and Services Personnel” and “Services Methods and Tools” were found to make a unique and statistically significant contribution to “Success of Services.” Research limitations/implications – The study highlights the importance of corporates leaders and service empl...

Model-Based Automated Navigation and Composition of Complex Service Mashups

Abstract: Service computing promotes a large number of web-delivered services, including web services, APIs and data feeds. Composing data, functionalities and even UI from these web-delivered services into a single web application, usually called service mashup , becomes a popular web development paradigm. The web-delivered services can be modeled as mashup components , while the development of mashup actually yields a set of inter-connected mashup components. The growing popularity of mashup components enriches functionality and user experiences, while the possible connections among components are complex and difficult to mashup developers, who might be non-professional programmers or even end-users, as actions over one component may have potential impacts on another. This paper proposes a novel approach for recommending developers in terms of navigation and completion of mashup components with a large-scale components repository. From data-driven perspective, we model the relationships between mashup components by a generic layered-graph model. Developers are allowed to select some initial components as starting point, while a graph-based algorithm recommends how to navigate to potentially relevant mashup components and complete the relevant mashup application. We experimentally demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach for rapid mashup construction.

QoS Prediction of Web Services Based on Two-Phase K-Means Clustering

Abstract: QoS prediction for Web services is a hot research problem in the field of services computing. As one of the most important methods for QoS prediction, Collaborative Filtering (CF) makes prediction based on the historical QoS data contributed by similar users and services. The key issue in this process is to detect the unreliable data offered by untrustworthy users, which has attracted limited attentions so far. The utilization of unreliable data decreases the prediction accuracy greatly. In this paper, we propose a novel credibility-aware QoS prediction method (named CAP) to address this problem. Our method first employs two-phase K-means clustering to identify the untrustworthy users, which clusters QoS values for untrustworthy index calculation in the first phase and clusters users according to their index in the second phase, and then predicts the missing QoS value based on the credible clustering information. The evaluation results demonstrate that CAP provides considerable improvement on the prediction accuracy compared with other approaches and is robust against various percentages of untrustworthy users.

Location-Based Services for Mobile Telephony: a study of Users' privacy concerns

Abstract: Context-aware computing often involves tracking peoples' location. Many studies and applications highlight the importance of keeping people's location information private. I discuss two types of location based services; location-tracking services that are based on other parties tracking the user's location and position-aware services that rely on the device's knowledge of its own location. I present an experimental case study that examines people's concern for location privacy and compare this to the use of location-based services. I find that even though the perceived usefulness of the two different types of services is the same, location tracking services generate more concern for privacy than position-aware services. We conclude that development emphasis should be given to position-aware services but that location-tracking services have a potential for success if users are given a simple option for turning the location-tracking off

A cloud computing platform for ERP applications

Abstract: A CloudERP platform was proposed.Customers can select web services and customize an ERP system.The proposed process builds on the GA and incorporates with the rough set theory.A prototype was built on the Google App Engine to verify the proposed process. Cloud computing enables many applications of Web services and rekindles the interest of providing ERP services via the Internet. It has the potentials to reshape the way IT services are consumed. Recent research indicates that ERP delivered thru SaaS will outperform the traditional IT offers. However, distributing a service compared to distributing a product is more complicated because of the immateriality, the integration and the one-shot-principle referring to services. This paper defines a CloudERP platform on which enterprise customers can select web services and customize a unique ERP system to meet their specific needs. The CloudERP aims to provide enterprise users with the flexibility of renting an entire ERP service through multiple vendors. This paper also addresses the challenge of composing web services and proposes a web-based solution for automating the ERP service customization process. The proposed service composition method builds on the genetic algorithm concept and incorporates with knowledge of web services extracted from the web service platform with the rough set theory. A system prototype was built on the Google App Engine platform to verify the proposed composition process. Based on experimental results from running the prototype, the composition method works effectively and has great potential for supporting a fully functional CloudERP platform.

An Overview of Cloud Services Adoption Challenges in Higher Education Institutions

Abstract: Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in enabling education services be delivered to users. Most education online services in universities have been run on the cloud to provide services to support students, lecturers, researchers and administration staff. These are enabled with the emergence of cloud computing in the world of IT. Cloud computing offers on demand Internet-based computing services. This paper presents an overview of cloud computing adoption in higher education, mainly tertiary institutions and universities. The focus of the paper is the challenges of cloud computing in higher education. It introduces the background to cloud computing and reviews research on adoption challenges in higher education institutions. These challenges are important as they provide an overview of the adoption of cloud in higher education. The authors proposed an integrated reference model based on the challenges in the literature integrated with TAM model to investigate the factors influence the users’ attitudes and behaviors toward using cloud education services in universities ICT provision.

Orchestration engine for real-time configuration and management of interconnections within a cloud-based services exchange

Abstract: In some examples, a cloud-based services exchange comprises a plurality of interconnection assets configured to connect at least one customer of the cloud-based services exchange to a plurality of cloud service providers; and an orchestration engine configured to modify the plurality of interconnection assets by receiving an indication of a client request for cloud exchange services offered by the cloud-based services exchange; selecting a workflow for providing the cloud exchange services, wherein the workflow specifies a set of tasks to be performed to fulfill the client request for the cloud exchange services; call one or more microservices to perform the tasks of the set of tasks as specified by the selected workflow; consolidate responses received from the microservices after performing the tasks; and send a response to the client request for the cloud exchange services based on the consolidated responses.

Data-Driven Composition for Service-Oriented Situational Web Applications

Abstract: The convergence of Services Computing and Web 2.0 gains a large space of opportunities to compose “situational” web applications from web-delivered services. However, the large number of services and the complexity of composition constraints make manual composition difficult to application developers, who might be non-professional programmers or even end-users. This paper presents a systematic data-driven approach to assisting situational application development. We first propose a technique to extract useful information from multiple sources to abstract service capabilities with a set tags. This supports intuitive expression of user’s desired composition goals by simple queries, without having to know underlying technical details. A planning technique then exploits composition solutions which can constitute the desired goals, even with some potential new interesting composition opportunities. A browser-based tool facilitates visual and iterative refinement of composition solutions, to finally come up with the satisfying outputs. A series of experiments demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach.

Indoor Location-Based Services : Prerequisites and Foundations

Abstract: This book delivers concise coverage of classical methods and new developments related to indoor location-based services. It collects results from isolated domains including geometry, artificial intelligence, statistics, cooperative algorithms, and distributed systems and thus provides an accessible overview of fundamental methods and technologies. This makes it an ideal starting point for researchers, students, and professionals in pervasive computing. Location-based services are services using the location of a mobile computing device as their primary input. While such services are fairly easy to implement outside buildings thanks to accessible global positioning systems and high-quality environmental information, the situation inside buildings is fundamentally different. In general, there is no simple way of determining the position of a moving target inside a building without an additional dedicated infrastructure. The books structure is learning oriented, starting with a short introduction to wireless communication systems and basic positioning techniques and ending with advanced features like event detection, simultaneous localization and mapping, and privacy aspects. Readers who are not familiar with the individual topics will be able to work through the book from start to finish. At the same time all chapters are self-contained to support readers who are already familiar with some of the content and only want to pick selected topics that are of particular interest.

Performance comparison of SOAP and REST based Web Services for Enterprise Application Integration

Abstract: Web Services are common means to exchange data and information over the network Web Services make themselves available over the internet, where technology and platform are independent Once web services are built it is accessed via uniform resource locator (URL) and their functionalities can be utilized in the application domain Web services are self-contained, modular, distributed and dynamic in nature These web services are described and then published in Service Registry eg, UDDI and then they are invoked over the Internet Web Services are basic Building blocks of Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) These web services can be developed based on two interaction styles such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Representational State Transfer Protocol (REST) It is important to select appropriate interaction styles ie, either SOAP or REST for building Web Sevices Choosing service interaction style is an important architectural decision for designers and developers, as it influences the underlying requirements for implementing web service solutions In this study, the performance of application of web services for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) based on SOAP and REST is compared Since web services operate over network throughput and response time are considered as a metrics parameter for evaluation

Pricing strategy for cloud computing

Abstract: How effective is a hybrid pricing strategy for a cloud computing services vendor that mixes fixed-price reserved services with spot-price on-demand services? This research offers a decision support model to create the appropriate strategy for IT services based on prior research on information goods, electricity pricing, product versioning, and revenue yield management. The goal is to establish whether interruptible spot-price on-demand cloud computing services - which we view as damaged services - are valuable to the vendor. The results from the analysis of an economic model show that a hybrid strategy outperforms a one-service-only strategy in most cases, especially when clients are sensitive to services interruptions or when task values are highly differentiated. A more intriguing finding is that a vendor should permit the possibility of services interruptions even when clients are highly sensitive to their occurrence. The presence of interruptions serves as a quality differentiator between the on-demand services and reserved services, assuring the efficacy of the hybrid strategy. Moreover, a vendor may use capacity limit, in the hybrid strategy, as a tool to further improve its profit. To our knowledge, this research is the first to propose the damaged services perspective as an analogy for damaged goods in the cloud software market. A hybrid strategy is shown to outperform a one-service-only strategy in most cases.A hybrid strategy performs well especially when clients are sensitive to services interruptions or when task values are highly differentiated.The presence of interruptions serves as a quality differentiator between the two types of services offered by the vendor, assuring the efficacy of the hybrid strategy.The presence of interruptions also provides the vendor with resource reallocation flexibility.If the vendor introduces a capacity limit in its contract, clients need to adopt a dynamic-threshold submission strategy to reserve limited computing resources for future high-value jobs.The vendor is able to use the capacity limit as a tool, together with the hybrid strategy, to improve its profit.

All the Services Large and Micro: Revisiting Industrial Practice in Services Computing

Abstract: Services computing is both an academic field of study looking back at close to 15 years of fundamental research and a vibrant area of industrial software engineering. Industrial practice in this area is notorious for its ever-changing nature, with the state of the art changing almost on a yearly basis based on the ebb and flow of various hypes and trends (e.g., microservices). In this paper, we provide a look “across the wall” into industrial services computing. We conducted an empirical study based on the service ecosystem of 42 companies, and report, among other aspects, how service-to-service communication is implemented, how service discovery works in practice, what Quality-of-Service metrics practitioners are most interested in, and how services are deployed and hosted. We argue that not all assumptions that are typical in academic papers in the field are justified based on industrial practice, and conclude the paper with recommendations for future research that is more aligned with the services industry.

The Technological Growth in eHealth Services.

Abstract: The infusion of information communication technology (ICT) into health services is emerging as an active area of research. It has several advantages but perhaps the most important one is providing medical benefits to one and all irrespective of geographic boundaries in a cost effective manner, providing global expertise and holistic services, in a time bound manner. This paper provides a systematic review of technological growth in eHealth services. The present study reviews and analyzes the role of four important technologies, namely, satellite, internet, mobile, and cloud for providing health services.

An Adaptive Multilevel Indexing Method for Disaster Service Discovery

Abstract: With the globe facing various scales of natural disasters then and there, disaster recovery is one among the hottest research areas and the rescue and recovery services can be highly benefitted with the advancements of information and communications technology (ICT). Enhanced rescue effect can be achieved through the dynamic networking of people, systems and procedures. A seamless integration of these elements along with the service-oriented systems can satisfy the mission objectives with the maximum effect. In disaster management systems, services from multiple sources are usually integrated and composed into a usable format in order to effectively drive the decision-making process. Therefore, a novel service indexing method is required to effectively discover desirable services from the large-scale disaster service repositories, comprising a huge number of services. With this in mind, this paper presents a novel multilevel indexing algorithm based on the equivalence theory in order to achieve effective service discovery in large-scale disaster service repositories. The performance and efficiency of the proposed model have been evaluated by both theoretical analysis and practical experiments. The experimental results proved that the proposed algorithm is more efficient for service discovery and composition than existing inverted index methods.

Web Services Composition Mechanisms: A Review

Abstract: Web Service composition is becoming the most promising way for business-to-business systems integration. However, current mechanisms for service composition entail a trade-off on multiple and complex factors. Thereby, existing solutions based on business Web Services, semantic Web Services, or the recent RESTful services, lack of a standardized adoption. This paper gives an overview of current approaches according to a set of features. Moreover, related core problems and future directions of service composition mechanisms are pointed out.

OntCAAC: An Ontology-Based Approach to Context-Aware Access Control for Software Services

Abstract: In modern communication environments, the ability to provide access control to services in a context-aware manner is crucial. By leveraging the dynamically changing context information, we can achieve context-specific control over access to services, better satisfying the security and privacy requirements of the stakeholders. In this paper, we introduce a new Context-Aware Access Control (CAAC) Framework that adopts an ontological approach in modelling dynamic context information and the corresponding CAAC policies. It includes a context model specific to access control, capturing the relevant low-level context information and inferring the high-level implicit context information. Using the context model, the policy model of the framework provides support for specifying and enforcing CAAC policies. We have developed a prototype and presented a healthcare case study to realise the framework.