Model-Based Relationship Management for Service Networks

With the broad adoption of service-orientation for the realization of business applications and their provisioning and usage over cloud infrastructures, the topology of the resulting service networks is becoming extremely complex. Due to the composition of services for value-added business capabilities and the reusability of a service in multiple compositions, the execution of one service often depends on other services and changes in its provisioning can affect the health of large parts of the service network. The lack of insight on the relationships between the network components makes the management of the service network’s health hard and error prone tasks. This article introduces a service network modeling approach for capturing the topology of a service network at design time. The approach considers the complete modeling process from representation, through collection, to analysis of the relationship information. The major contributions are a generic and adaptable modeling structure, a classification of service network entities and relationships, and a modular management framework automating the modeling process. Model-Based Relationship Management for Service Networks