Automatic Service Composition via Model Checking

Web service composition is the process of constructing a set of Web services which, when invoked with some user input in a particular order, can produce the output to the user's requirements. This paper proposes a novel model checking based approach for automated service composition. Modeling services as a set of interleaved processes in a class of process algebra, we formulate service composition as model checking asserted on a specific type of property on the model. We show that, under this formulation, correct composition workflows can be constructed from the counter-examples provided by model checking. With a case study on online hotel booking services, we demonstrate that the proposed approach can support directed a cyclic composition graphs and the generated composition graphs are automatically verified.