Web Service Selection Algorithm Using Vickrey Auction

The technology for web services has facilitated composition of a new service by combining existing services. The resulting composite service is required to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS), such as price, in addition to the demanded function. Each composite service faces computationally-expensive service selection by exploring enormous service combinations for optimization of a utility function and satisfaction of global constraints. In addition, each concrete service has difficulties in determining QoS that is profitable while attractive for customers, or composite services. Specifically, information on rival services is generally secret and changeable, which is required for the optimal decision. In response to these problems, this paper proposes an algorithm for service selection using Vickrey auction. In the first phase of the proposed algorithm, the composite service selects some best concrete services through the reverse Vickrey auction, only considering the utility function. In the second phase, the global constraints are satisfied through adjustments based on the Vickrey auction. The proposed algorithm avoids full exploration of services combinations for efficient computation, while encouraging providers to declare their best QoS without caring about extra profit.