Context-Aware Service Composition with Functionally Equivalent Services for Complex User Requests

Abstract

In some situations, a complex user request cannot be satisfied by only sequential composition of services, rather by a combination of sequential and parallel composition of services. Typically user requests are represented as directed acyclic graphs (DAG). In this paper, the problem of service composition with functionally equivalent services in a context-aware setting where the user request is given as a DAG is considered. A planning based approach for service composition is suggested where a plan repair strategy adapts an existing plan to a new context by making minimalistic changes. Extensive experiments using different types of user requests have been performed. The results are quite promising and it manifest the efficacy of the proposed approach.