Mediation bridging between heterogeneous web service systems

Abstract

This chapter covers the mediation aspect in a Semantic Web Services environment. Mediation components should allow any service to speak with any other service in a scalable manner, overcoming the heterogeneity of data formats, terminologies, interaction styles, etc. In this chapter, we decompose mediation in three levels, according to the classification provided in Chap. (1) data mediation, concerned with the transformation of the syntactic format of the messages exchanged by Web Services; (2) ontology mediation, concerned with the transformation of the terminology used inside the messages exchanged and (3) protocol or choreography mediation, concerned with the problem of non-matching message interaction patterns. Business process mediation is not considered, since it requires to perform a task of process re-engineering that is outside the context of research in Semantic Web Services. © 2007 Springer.