A conceptual architecture for semantic web services development and deployment

Several extensions of the Web Services Framework (WSF) have been proposed. The combination with Semantic Web technologies introduces a notion of semantics, which can enhance scalability through automation. Service composition to processes is an equally important issue. Ontology technology – the core of the Semantic Web – can be the central building block of an extension endeavour. We present a conceptual architecture for ontology-based Web service development and deployment. The development of service-based software systems within the WSF is gaining increasing importance. We show how ontologies can integrate models, languages, infrastructure, and activities within this architecture to support reuse and composition of semantic Web services

An ontological framework for web service processes

The process notion is central in computing. Business processes and workflow processes are essential elements of software systems implementations. Processes are connected to notions of interaction and composition. The Web Services Framework as a development and deployment platform for services is based on the assembly of interacting processes as the compositional paradigm. Service-based software development on and for the Web platform embracing the philosophy of discovering and using third-party services makes a shared knowledge representation framework necessary. We develop a semantical and ontological framework for service process composition. We propose a framework for the compositional de�nition of Web services based on the �-calculus to de�ne protocol-like restrictions on service interactions and based on description logic and ontologies to guide the discovery and modelling of services and processes

Analysis of deployment techniques for webbased applications in SMEs

The Internet is no longer just a source for accessing information; it has become a valuable medium for social networking and software services. Web-browsers can now access entire software systems available online to provide the user with a range of services. The concept of software as a service(SAAS) was born out of this. The number of development techniques and frameworks for such web-applications has grown rapidly and much research and development has been carried out on advancing the capability of web scripting languages and web browsers. However a key part of the life-cycle of web-applications that has not received adequate attention is deployment. The deployment techniques chosen to deploy a web application can have a serious affect on the cost of maintenance and the quality of service for the end user. A SAAS modelled web application attempts to emulate a desktop software package experience. If a deployment process affects the availability and quality of service of a web-application then the core concept of this model is broken. This dissertation identifies approaches to designing a deployment process and the aspects that influence the quality of a deployment technique. A survey was circulated to a number of Irish small to medium sized enterprises (SME) that develop web-based software. The survey shows an overview of multiple deployment processes used by these SMEs. Using this information, along with a review of the available literature and a detailed case study of a typical SME deploying SAAS based products, the dissertation provides a critical analysis and evaluation of the current deployment techniques being used

How do goals drive the engineering of capacity-driven Web services?

This paper discusses a goal-based approach for the engineering of capacity-driven Web services. In this approach goals are set to define the roles that these Web services could play in business applications, to frame the requirements that could be put on these Web services, and to identify the processes in term of business logic that these Web services could implement. Because of the specificities of capacity-driven Web services compared to regular (i.e., mono-capacity) Web services, their engineering in terms of design, development, and deployment needs to be conducted in a complete different way. A Web service that is empowered with several capacities, which are basically operations to execute, has to know which capacity it can choose from several capacities for triggering at run-time. For this purpose, the Web service takes into account different types of requirements like data and privacy that are put on each capacity empowering this Web service. In addition, this paper shows that the goals in the approach to engineering capacity-driven Web services are geared towards three aspects, which as business logic, requirement, and capacity. © 2010 IEEE

A document-oriented web-based application for supporting collaborative product development

Innovation is a creative process strongly associated with development and deployment of new products, i.e., goods and services. This is essential in the global economy of today for sustainability and success of companies. Good collaboration between those involved in new product development is an essential requisite for this success. Such collaboration, which involves not only company stakeholders but also suppliers and customers, requires easy access to necessary data and agile communication and sharing of relevant information, which is distributed in a network of resources and users. Hence, web-based applications, decentralized repositories and databases are used to store and manage product and process development information. For meeting these new product development requirements Internet based collaborative tools and services must be applied. The use of web services is important in product development, helping the integration of data and knowledge bases and also processes and application interactions. This paper reports on work for managing product and process information, as well as documentation generation, throughout the product development process cycle in an Internet based collaborative environment. The information concerned includes product and process information, as well as product development history. One important aspect deals with web based restoring decisions and options made along the product design and development cycle, including product revisions and/or versions manipulation. The research work, focus is on the development of a document-oriented web-based application using Apache CouchDB technology and REST web services. The proposed application is described and the main functionalities are illustrated through some examples of use.Universidade do MinhoFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Model-Driven Development of SOA Services

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) will form the basis of future information systems. Basic web services are being assembled to composite web services in order to directly support business processes. As some basic web services can be used in several composite web services, different business processes are influenced if for example a web service is unavailable or if its signature changes. Yet the range of such a change is often ambiguous due to a missing overall SOA service model pointing out the influence of services on business processes. In this paper we present a SOA service model defined as a UML-based metamodel and its integration into a model-driven service development approach. In contrary to existing approaches we explicitly address deployment issues

Enterprise Web 2.0: The Challenge of Executive Sense-Making and Consensus

As the complexity of business ventures increase and the essential roles of IT-alignment processes and service coherency receive increasing attention, managerial exchange and coordination across the executive board become all the more pivotal. Enterprise Web 2.0 is particularly affording in this respect, as the deployment of the involved web-based applications and services in core build on the realization of overarching, holistic business conceptions; i.e., strategic consensus among chief executive (CEO) and chief IT (CIO) must be seen as core prerequisites for successful future corporate IT-development. Based on results from the Enterprise 2.0-Survey FIN08, administered to Finnish enterprise leaders, this paper reports on the contents and degrees of consensus between these two managerial populations regarding the 4 interest areas of familiarity and basic conception, evaluation and attitude, sense-making and deployment objective, as well as deployment manner. Generally we found CIOs and direct IT-managing officers to be more knowledgeable and experienced, as well as more ready to invest than CEOs and officers with mere decision-making competences. However at the same time, CIOs displayed also a higher degree of critical realism and caution about the prospects and enterprise Web 2.0-deployment

eLabs – platform for online laboratory management

We observe, today, an unprecedented development of information technologies in various organizational, social and economic fields. The Web is the main driver of this evolution from a simple display system of linked pages to a powerful platform for information and communication, having the interaction, the dynamism and multimedia resources their main features. At the organizational level, the Web has introduced several improvements, turning the business processes more effective and centered on users. The deployment of portals to support management and communication in organizations was the first step in the integration of information technologies in several fields of organizations. One of the most relevant technologies to support business process management is workflow, representing the most significant solution for process automation and information management inside an organization. According to Hales (1997) workflow is a proactive management system that manages the workflow among the participants (users or other systems), according to predefined procedures that define the tasks. This article discusses the development of a platform for online laboratory management based on workflow technologies, with the main goals to improve communication, cooperation and integrated management of resources, promoting greater efficiency in laboratory management. The eLabs platform is been used in Instituto Politécnico de Bragança for laboratory management, integrating the management of internal and external services, equipment, resources and tasks. The results obtained demonstrate an improvement in the efficiency of resources management and the enhancement of quality of services realized inside the institution and to the community

Ontology driven multi-agent systems : an architecture for sensor web applications.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.Advances in sensor technology and space science have resulted in the availability of vast quantities of high quality earth observation data. This data can be used for monitoring the earth and to enhance our understanding of natural processes. Sensor Web researchers are working on constructing a worldwide computing infrastructure that enables dynamic sharing and analysis of complex heterogeneous earth observation data sets. Key challenges that are currently being investigated include data integration; service discovery, reuse and composition; semantic interoperability; and system dynamism. Two emerging technologies that have shown promise in dealing with these challenges are ontologies and software agents. This research investigates how these technologies can be integrated into an Ontology Driven Multi-Agent System (ODMAS) for the Sensor Web. The research proposes an ODMAS framework and an implemented middleware platform, i.e. the Sensor Web Agent Platform (SWAP). SWAP deals with ontology construction, ontology use, and agent based design, implementation and deployment. It provides a semantic infrastructure, an abstract architecture, an internal agent architecture and a Multi-Agent System (MAS) middleware platform. Distinguishing features include: the incorporation of Bayesian Networks to represent and reason about uncertain knowledge; ontologies to describe system entities such as agent services, interaction protocols and agent workflows; and a flexible adapter based MAS platform that facilitates agent development, execution and deployment. SWAP aims to guide and ease the design, development and deployment of dynamic alerting and monitoring applications. The efficacy of SWAP is demonstrated by two satellite image processing applications, viz. wildfire detection and monitoring informal settlement. This approach can provide significant benefits to a wide range of Sensor Web users. These include: developers for deploying agents and agent based applications; end users for accessing, managing and visualising information provided by real time monitoring applications, and scientists who can use the Sensor Web as a scientific computing platform to facilitate knowledge sharing and discovery. An Ontology Driven Multi-Agent Sensor Web has the potential to forever change the way in which geospatial data and knowledge is accessed and used. This research describes this far reaching vision, identifies key challenges and provides a first step towards the vision

Andes Basin Focal Project

The CPWF Basin Focal Project for the Andes system of basins worked with a range of local stakeholders to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms for improving the productivity of water in the Andes. We considered productivity in broad terms as the productivity of energy (HEP), food and fiber (agriculture) and livelihoods (industry, transport and benefit sharing such as Payments for Environmental Services schemes (PES)). In addition to the compiled data bases and analyses on poverty and institutions, one of the key deliverables of the project was the development and deployment of the AguAAndes policy support system (PSS). This integrates analyses of water availability and productivity within the local environmental and policy context. It is a web-based policy support system combining an extensive spatial database with process-based models for hydrology, crop production and socio-economic processes. It is intended to allow analysts and decision makers to test the potential onsite and offsite impacts of land and water management decisions in terms of their ability to sustain environmental services and human wellbeing. Interventions and recommendations for future actions on water and food in the region are presented