Modeling the dynamics of web-based service and resource-oriented digital ecosystems

The notion of digital species is broadened to include services and resources, special issues arise in modeling the dynamics and workflows with representations associated with these services and resources. To address these issues, this paper explores two different yet related approaches: the traditional BPEL-based workflow modeling approach and the Mashupbased Web approach. In this paper, we first demonstrate two examples of service-oriented and resource-oriented digital ecosystems on the Web. We then identify key issues pertinent to both types of DES. We discuss formal definition, specifications and issues of BPEL-based approach and Mashup-based modeling techniques with computational formalisms. Finally, we propose a hybrid approach to deal with modeling the dynamicsin processes associated with such Digital Ecosystems

mPower: A component-based development framework for multi-agent systems to support business processes

One of the obstacles preventing the widespread adoption of multi-agent systems in industry is the difficulty of implementing heterogeneous interactions among participating agents via asynchronous messages. This difficulty arises from the need to understand how to combine elements of various content languages, ontologies, and interaction protocols in order to construct meaningful and appropriate messages. In this paper mPower, a component-based layered framework for easing the development of multi-agent systems, is described, and the facility for customising the components for reuse in similar domains is explained. The framework builds on the JADE-LEAP platform, which provides a homogeneous layer over diverse operating systems and hardware devices, and allows ubiquitous deployment of applications built on multi-agent systems both in wired and wireless environments. The use of the framework to develop mPowermobile , a multi-agent system to support mobile workforces, is reported

Towards next generation coordination infrastructures

Coordination infrastructures play a central role in the engineering of multiagent systems. Since the advent of agent technology, research on coordination infrastructures has produced a significant number of infrastructures with varying features. In this paper, we review the the state-of-the-art coordination infrastructures with the purpose of identifying open research challenges that next generation coordination infrastructures should address. Our analysis concludes that next generation coordination infrastructures must address a number of challenges: (i) to become socially aware, by facilitating human interaction within a MAS; (ii) to assist agents in their decision making by providing decision support that helps them reduce the scope of reasoning and facilitates the achievement of their goals; and (iii) to increase openness to support on-line, fully decentralised design and execution. Furthermore, we identify some promising approaches in the literature, together with the research issues worth investigating, to cope with such challenges. © Cambridge University Press, 2015.The work presented in this paper has been partially funded by projects EVE (TIN2009-14702-C02-01), AT (CSD2007-0022), and the Generalitat of Catalunya grant 2009-SGR-1434Peer Reviewe

Towards next generation coordination infrastructures

Coordination infrastructures play a central role in the engineering of multiagent systems. Since the advent of agent technology, research on coordination infrastructures has produced a significant number of infrastructures with varying features. In this paper, we review the the state-of-the-art coordination infrastructures with the purpose of identifying open research challenges that next generation coordination infrastructures should address. Our analysis concludes that next generation coordination infrastructures must address a number of challenges: (i) to become socially aware, by facilitating human interaction within a MAS; (ii) to assist agents in their decision making by providing decision support that helps them reduce the scope of reasoning and facilitates the achievement of their goals; and (iii) to increase openness to support on-line, fully decentralised design and execution. Furthermore, we identify some promising approaches in the literature, together with the research issues worth investigating, to cope with such challenges

Process optimization of service-oriented automation devices based on Petri nets

Best paper award.This paper introduces a novel method for the specification and selection of criteria-weighted operation modes for the orchestration of services in industrial automation using Petri nets. The objective is to provide to the internal decision support system of a service-oriented automation device or of another applicable computational system the capability to select the best path in a Petri net orchestration model considering different criteria to evaluate the quality of services, such as the time, energy efficiency and reliability. The transition-invariants obtained from the Petri net represent the set of possible modi operandi and these are then weighted with decision criteria. The result will be afterwards evaluated in order to select the optimal modus operandi to be executed by the device. Based on the experiments, this method permits the dynamic optimization of processes in real-time, considering available parameters from devices and other resources.The authors would like to thank the European Commission and the partners of the EU FP6 project “Service-Oriented Cross-layer infrastructure for Distributed smart Embedded devices” (SOCRADES) and the EU FP7 project “Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence” (CONET) for their support

A language and toolkit for the specification, execution and monitoring of dependable distributed applications

PhD ThesisThis thesis addresses the problem of specifying the composition of distributed applications out of existing applications, possibly legacy ones. With the automation of business processes on the increase, more and more applications of this kind are being constructed. The resulting applications can be quite complex, usually long-lived and are executed in a heterogeneous environment. In a distributed environment, long-lived activities need support for fault tolerance and dynamic reconfiguration. Indeed, it is likely that the environment where they are run will change (nodes may fail, services may be moved elsewhere or withdrawn) during their execution and the specification will have to be modified. There is also a need for modularity, scalability and openness. However, most of the existing systems only consider part of these requirements. A new area of research, called workflow management has been trying to address these issues. This work first looks at what needs to be addressed to support the specification and execution of these new applications in a heterogeneous, distributed environment. A co- ordination language (scripting language) is developed that fulfils the requirements of specifying the composition and inter-dependencies of distributed applications with the properties of dynamic reconfiguration, fault tolerance, modularity, scalability and openness. The architecture of the overall workflow system and its implementation are then presented. The system has been implemented as a set of CORBA services and the execution environment is built using a transactional workflow management system. Next, the thesis describes the design of a toolkit to specify, execute and monitor distributed applications. The design of the co-ordination language and the toolkit represents the main contribution of the thesis.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, CaberNet, Northern Telecom (Nortel)

Value-Oriented Design of Service Coordination Processes: Correctness and Trust

The rapid growth of service coordination languages creates a need for methodological support for coordination design. Coordination design differs from workflow design because a coordination process connects different businesses that can each make design decisions independently from the others, and no business is interested in supporting the business processes of others. In multi-business cooperative design, design decisions are only supported by all businesses if they contribute to the profitability of each participating business. So in order to make coordination design decisions supported by all participating businesses, requirements for a coordination process should be derived from the business model that makes the coordination profitable for each participating business. We claim that this business model is essentially a model of intended value exchanges. We model the intended value exchanges of a business model as e3 -value value models and coordination processes as UML activity diagrams. The contribution of the paper is then to propose and discuss a criterion according to which a service coordination process must be correct with respect to a value exchange model. This correctness is necessary to gain business support for the process. Finally, we discuss methodological consequences of this approach for service coordination process design

Latency-Sensitive Web Service Workflows: A Case for a Software-Defined Internet

The Internet, at large, remains under the control of service providers and autonomous systems. The Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing provide an increasing demand and potential for more user control for their web service workflows. Network Softwarization revolutionizes the network landscape in various stages, from building, incrementally deploying, and maintaining the environment. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are two core tenets of network softwarization. SDN offers a logically centralized control plane by abstracting away the control of the network devices in the data plane. NFV virtualizes dedicated hardware middleboxes and deploys them on top of servers and data centers as network functions. Thus, network softwarization enables efficient management of the system by enhancing its control and improving the reusability of the network services. In this work, we propose our vision for a Software-Defined Internet (SDI) for latency-sensitive web service workflows. SDI extends network softwarization to the Internet-scale, to enable a latency-aware user workflow execution on the Internet.Comment: Accepted for Publication at The Seventh International Conference on Software Defined Systems (SDS-2020

Ontology-Based QoS Aggregation for Composite Web Services

Determining the QoS (quality of service) of composite Web services is of high importance for both service providers and service consumers. Heterogeneity of service descriptions, however, often hinders the aggregation of QoS parameters. We propose ontology-based QoS aggregation that integrates the semantics of QoS parameters and their aggregation into the overall aggregation process. The contribution is a QoS aggregation ontology and a QoS aggregation method that uses this ontology. We demonstrate the usefulness of our proposal for designers of composite services and assess its computational efficiency