Relation Based Service Networks for Reliable Service Selection

With the steady growth of Web services in recent years, service users are confronted with great difficulties in selecting suitable services from substantial functionally similar services in the complex service provisioning environment. Contradictions and incompatibilities arise during service selection in the design and maintenance of enterprize applications. To solve these problems, necessary relations such as inter-service dependencies as well as functional similarities should be explicitly clarified. In this paper we propose a concept of service networks (SNs) which can organize domain classified services in terms of relations. Service selection mechanisms based on the SNs are discussed. The SNs present a platform for service providers not only to publish services but to establish collaborations with other partners.