On interoperability and conformance assessment in service composition

The process of composing a service from other services typically involves multiple models. These models may represent the service from distinct perspectives, e.g., to model the different roles of systems involved in the service, and at distinct abstraction levels, e.g., to model the service’s capability, interface or the orchestration that implements the service. The consistency among these models needs to be maintained in order to guarantee the correctness of the composition process. Two types of consistency relations are distinguished: interoperability, which concerns the ability of different roles to interoperate, and conformance, which concerns the correct implementation of an abstract model by a more concrete model. This paper discusses the need for and use of techniques to assess interoperability and conformance in a service composition process. The paper shows how these consistency relations can be described and analysed using concepts from the COSMO framework. Examples are presented to illustrate how interoperability and conformance can be assessed

Business integration models in the context of web services.

E-commerce development and applications have been bringing the Internet to business and marketing and reforming our current business styles and processes. The rapid development of the Web, in particular, the introduction of the semantic web and web service technologies, enables business processes, modeling and management to enter an entirely new stage. Traditional web based business data and transactions can now be analyzed, extracted and modeled to discover new business rules and to form new business strategies, let alone mining the business data in order to classify customers or products. In this paper, we investigate and analyze the business integration models in the context of web services using a micro-payment system because a micro-payment system is considered to be a service intensive activity, where many payment tasks involve different forms of services, such as payment method selection for buyers, security support software, product price comparison, etc. We will use the micro-payment case to discuss and illustrate how the web services approaches support and transform the business process and integration model.

An ontology for managing network services quality

The evolution of IP networks to a service-oriented paradigm poses new challenges to service providers regarding the management and auditing of network services. The upward trend in ubiquity, heterogeneity and virtualization of network services and resources demands for a formal and systematic approach to network management tasks. In this context, the semantic characterization and modeling of services provided to users is a key component to sustain autonomic service management, service negotiation and configuration. The semantic and formal description of services and resources is also relevant to assist paradigms such as cloud computing, where a large diversity of resources have to be described and managed in a highly dynamic way. This paper defines an ontology for multiservice IP networks targeting multiple service management goals, namely: (i) to foster client and service provider interoperability; (ii) to manage network service contracts, promoting the dynamic negotiation between parties; (iii) to access and query SLA/SLSs data on a individual or aggregated basis to assist service provisioning in the network; and (iv) to sustain service monitoring and auditing. A ServiceModel API is provided to take full advantage of the proposed semantic model, allowing Service Management Platforms to access the ontological contents. This ontological development takes advantage of SWRL to discover new knowledge, enriching the possibilities of systems described using this support.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

A Semantic Model for Enhancing Network Services Management and Auditing

The road toward ubiquity, heterogeneity and virtualization of network services and resources urges for a formal and systematic approach to network management tasks. In particular, the semantic characterization and modeling of services provided to users assume an essential role in fostering autonomic service management, service negotiation and auditing. This paper is centered on the definition of an ontology for multiservice IP networks which intends to address multiple service management goals, namely: (i) to foster client and service provider interoperability; (ii) to manage network service contracts, facilitating the dynamic negotiation between clients and ISPs; (iii) to access and query SLA/SLSs data on an individual or aggregated basis to assist service provisioning in the network; and (iv) to sustain service monitoring and auditing. In order to take full advantage of the proposed semantic model, a service model API is provided to allow service management platforms to access the ontological contents. This ontological development also takes advantage of SWRL to discover new knowledge, enriching the possibilities of systems described using this support

Unified Theory of Relativistic Identification of Information in a Systems Age: Proposed Convergence of Unique Identification with Syntax and Semantics through Internet Protocol version 6

Unique identification of objects are helpful to the decision making process in many domains. Decisions, however, are often based on information that takes into account multiple factors. Physical objects and their unique identification may be one of many factors. In real-world scenarios, increasingly decisions are based on collective information gathered from multiple sources (or systems) and then combined to a higher level domain that may trigger a decision or action. Currently, we do not have a globally unique mechanism to identify information derived from data originating from objects and processes. Unique identification of information, hence, is an open question. In addition, information, to be of value, must be related to the context of the process. In general, contextual information is of greater relevance in the decision making process or in decision support systems. In this working paper, I shall refer to such information as decisionable information. The suggestion here is to utilize the vast potential of internet protocol version six (IPv6) to uniquely identify not only objects and processes but also relationships (semantics) and interfaces (sensors). Convergence of identification of diverse entities using the globally agreed structure of IPv6 offers the potential to identify 3.4x10[subscript 38] instances based on the fact that the 128-bit IPv6 structure can support 3.4x10[subscript 38] unique addresses. It is not necessary that all instances must be connected to the internet or routed or transmitted simply because an IP addressing scheme is suggested. This is a means for identification that will be globally unique and offers the potential to be connected or routed via the internet. In this working paper, scenarios offer [1] new revenue potential from data routing (P2P traffic track and trace) for telecommunication industries, [2] potential for use in healthcare and biomedical community, [3] scope of use in the semantic web structure by transitioning URIs used in RDF, [4] applications involving thousands of mobile ad hoc sensors (MANET) that demand dynamic adaptive auto-reconfiguration. This paper presents a confluence of ideas

Characterization and semantic modeling of services in multiservice networks

The use of the Internet as a global communication infrastructure to support a wide range of multiconstrained applications and services poses new challenges to ISPs regarding network services management and auditing. In this context, the semantic characterization and modeling of services provided to users assumes an essential role in fostering service management automation. Moreover, the semantic and formal description of services allows enhancing the negotiation and interoperability between clients and service providers. This paper reports the first steps toward the definition of an ontology for multiservice networks that eases and systemizes decision support of QoS deployment in ISP infrastructures, according to service levels established in SLAs. Other management tasks such as dynamic service negotiation and configuration, service monitoring and auditing may also benefit from the present ontology proposal

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms