Web Service Offerings Language (WSOL) and Web Service Composition Management (WSCM)

Our research on Web Services is organized into two related projects. First, we develop Web Service Offerings Language (WSOL) for formal specification of various constraints and classes of service for Web Services. A service offering in WSOL is a formal representation of one class of service of one Web Service. It contains formal representation of various constraints: functional (pre-, post-, and future-conditions), non-functional (a.k.a. Quality of Service QoS), and access rights. It also contains statements about price/penalty and management responsibility. The Web Service, its consumer, or one or more designated third parties (usually SOAP message intermediaries) can evaluate WSOL constraints. For easier specification of similar service offerings, WSOL enables specification of constraint groups (CGs) and constraint group templates (CGTs). We have also developed a format for representation of dynamic relationships between service offerings. WSOL service offerings are simple contracts and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) between Web Services. Our second project is on Web Service Composition Management (WSCM). WSCM is management of Web Service compositions. This is a different task from Web Service Management (WSM). WSM is management of a particular Web Service or a group of Web Services within the same domain of management responsibility. While WSCM is related to network and system management (NSM) and business process management (BPM), there are important differences. We research various aspects of WSCM and develop a comprehensive WSCM architecture. Monitoring and manipulation of WSOL service offerings can be important part of both WSM and WSCM.