Formation of service value networks for decentralized service provisioning

Abstract

The provisioning of complex services requires tight collaboration between diverse service providers and their customers harmonizing supply and demand chains to a highly flexible, dynamic and decentralized service value network. Peers in such a network autonomously delegate (sub-)tasks which cannot be done efficiently by themselves to other more suitable peers in their community. In this paper, we propose an architecture for such service communities that features decentralized service provisioning based on current Web technologies. In this context, we present an algorithm for efficient service value network formation and show by means of a simulation that sufficiently sized service networks can fulfill practically all customer requests. When compared to the optimal (central) case, there is a modest price increase for the customers but the overall welfare decreases only insignificantly. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.