Semantic Web Service Interaction Protocols: An Ontological Approach

Abstract

A central requirement for achieving the vision of run-time discovery and dynamic composition of services is the provision of appropriate descriptions of the operation of a service, that is, how the service interacts with agents or other services. In this paper, we use experience gained through the development of real-life Grid applications to produce a set of requirements for such descriptions and then attempt to match those requirements against the offerings of existing work, such as OWLS [1] and IRS-II [2]. Based on this analysis we identify which requirements are not addressed by current research and, in response, produce a model for describing the interaction protocol of a service in response. The main contributions of this model are the ability to describe the interactions of multiple parties with respect to a single service, distinguish between interactions initiated by the service itself and interactions that are initiated by clients or other cooperating services, and capture within the description service state changes relevant to interacting parties that are either a result of internal service events or interactions. The aim of the model is not to replace existing work, since it only focuses on the description of the interaction protocol of a service, but to inform the further development of such work. © Springer-Verlag 2004.