Using semantics for automating the authentication of Web APIs

Recent technology developments in the area of services on the Web are marked by the proliferation of Web applications and APIs. The implementation and evolution of applications based on Web APIs is, however, hampered by the lack of automation that can be achieved with current technologies. Research on semantic Web services is there fore trying to adapt the principles and technologies that were devised for traditional Web services, to deal with this new kind of services. In this paper we show that currently more than 80% of the Web APIs require some form of authentication. Therefore authentication plays a major role for Web API invocation and should not be neglected in the context of mashups and composite data applications. We present a thorough analysis carried out over a body of publicly available APIs that determines the most commonly used authentication approaches. In the light of these results, we propose an ontology for the semantic annotation of Web API authentication information and demonstrate how it can be used to create semantic Web API descriptions. We evaluate the applicability of our approach by providing a prototypical implementation, which uses authentication annotations as the basis for automated service invocation

Semantic annotation of Web APIs with SWEET

Recently technology developments in the area of services on the Web are marked by the proliferation of Web applications and APIs. The development and evolution of applications based on Web APIs is, however, hampered by the lack of automation that can be achieved with current technologies. In this paper we present SWEET - Semantic Web sErvices Editing Tool - a lightweight Web application for creating semantic descriptions of Web APIs. SWEET directly supports the creation of mashups by enabling the semantic annotation of Web APIs, thus contributing to the automation of the discovery, composition and invocation service tasks. Furthermore, it enables the development of composite SWS based applications on top of Linked Data

Java ME Clients for XML Web Services

Using Web services in developing applications has many advantages like the existence of standards, multiple software platforms that support them, and many areas of usage. These advantages derive from the XML and Web technologies. This paper describes the stages in the development of a Web service client for Java ME platform and presents examples based on kSOAP and JSR 172.Web services, mobile applications, Java ME, SOAP, XML, m-learning

GRAIL – Grid Access and Instrumentation Tool

Since the release of Globus Toolkit 4 Web services enrich the world of Grid Computing. They provide methods to develop modular Grid applications which can be parallelized easily. The access to Web services is mostly solved by complex command line tools which need a good deal of knowledge of the underlaying Grid technologies. GRAIL is intended to fill the gap between existing Grid access methods and both the developer who wants to utilize the Grid for own developments and the user who wants to access the Grid without much additional knowledge. It simplifies the access and the testing of Web services for the Globus Grid middleware. GRAIL provides an easy to use graphical user interface for executing Web services and enables the user to construct complex relationships between services to realize parallel execution. The underlying framework allows an easy integration of any Web service or other arbitrary task without much additional effort for the developer. Existing technologies, shipped with the Globus Toolkit, are seamlessly integrated into GRAIL

Creating web services using ASP.NET: Working paper series--04-06

Web services have been advertised as the answer to enterprise application integration, reusability, and as a way to prolong the life of legacy applications. By developing applications as Web Services they become available (exposed) to other applications that use (consume) the service following open Web standards. These services can be exposed and consumed over an intranet, extranet, or the internet through standard Web technologies. These technologies include WSDL, an XML-based description format; SOAP, an application messaging protocol; and HTTP, a collection and transport protocol. Several simple Web Services were developed using ASP.NET technology. The Web Service applications were created using Visual Studio .NET. The services were published to a .NET server. A Web application was developed using Visual Studio .NET to consume the previously created Web Services. A definition of Web Services and descriptions of the technology that is used to create, expose, and consume the Web Services will be provided

Approaches to Semantic Web Services: An Overview and Comparison

Abstract. The next Web generation promises to deliver Semantic Web Services (SWS); services that are self-described and amenable to automated discovery, composition and invocation. A prerequisite to this, however, is the emergence and evolution of the Semantic Web, which provides the infrastructure for the semantic interoperability of Web Services. Web Services will be augmented with rich formal descriptions of their capabilities, such that they can be utilized by applications or other services without human assistance or highly constrained agreements on interfaces or protocols. Thus, Semantic Web Services have the potential to change the way knowledge and business services are consumed and provided on the Web. In this paper, we survey the state of the art of current enabling technologies for Semantic Web Services. In addition, we characterize the infrastructure of Semantic Web Services along three orthogonal dimensions: activities, architecture and service ontology. Further, we examine and contrast three current approaches to SWS according to the proposed dimensions

Transitioning Applications to Semantic Web Services: An Automated Formal Approach

Semantic Web Services have been recognized as a promising technology that exhibits huge commercial potential, and attract significant attention from both industry and the research community. Despite expectations being high, the industrial take-up of Semantic Web Service technologies has been slower than expected. One of the main reasons is that many systems have been developed without considering the potential of the web in integrating services and sharing resources. Without a systematic methodology and proper tool support, the migration from legacy systems to Semantic Web Service-based systems can be a very tedious and expensive process, which carries a definite risk of failure. There is an urgent need to provide strategies which allow the migration of legacy systems to Semantic Web Services platforms, and also tools to support such a strategy. In this paper we propose a methodology for transitioning these applications to Semantic Web Services by taking the advantage of rigorous mathematical methods. Our methodology allows users to migrate their applications to Semantic Web Services platform automatically or semi-automatically

Semantic query languages for knowledge-based web services in a construction context

Since the early 2000s, different frameworks were set up to enable web-based collaboration in building projects. Unfortunately, none of these initiatives was granted a long life. Recently, however, the use of web technologies in the building industry has been gaining momentum again, considered some promising technologies for reaching a more interoperable BIM practice. Specifically, this relates to (1) Linked Data and Semantic Web technologies, and (2) cloud-based applications. In order to combine these into a network of interlinked applications and datastores, an agreed-upon mechanism for automatic communication and data retrieval needs to be used. Apart from the W3C standard SPARQL, often considered too high a threshold for developers to implement, there are some recent GraphQL-based solutions that simplify the querying process and its implementation into web services. In this paper, we review two recent open source technologies based on GraphQL, that enable to query Linked Data on the web: GraphQL-LD and HyperGraphQL

User interaction and uptake challenges to successfully deploying Semantic Web technologies

The Semantic Web community could benefit greatly from 'eating its own dog food' in order to better understand the challenges and opportunities of a Semantic Web from the user perspective. In this paper we describe the deployment of Semantic Web applications and services at the 3rd European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC2006), before presenting results of an evaluation into how these technologies were experienced by delegates. Based on themes identified in the evaluation we highlight seven user interaction and uptake challenges raised by the conference experience, and discuss how these may generalize to the widespread deployment of Semantic Web technologies