The role of local knowledge in complex Web service reconfiguration

As the number of Web services in repositories on the World Wide Web increases so do the number of complex configurations of Web services. However, as the World Wide Web is dynamic, Web services come and go, temporarily or for good. As a result, complex Web service configurations need to be reconfigured on demand. To this purpose, complex Web service configurations need to include local knowledge about (1) the function, structure and behaviour of each component in a configuration; and (2) the dependencies between components at each level of composition. Templates are proposed as a means to represent such knowledge. To illustrate the process of reconfiguration, an example is given of reconfiguration of a complex Web service, for which a template is used specifying both types of local knowledge.