Adaptable, Organization-Aware, Service-Oriented Computing

Service-oriented computing is the new wave emerging from maturing Web services and the adoption of elements from Semantic Web technology. More sophistication, in response to business requirements, does of course not make it easier to use or to control. In particular, business processes demand resilience and real-time adaptation in the face of changing business requirements, incorporation of alternative services and finding suitable substitutes when those needed are unavailable. The European Union-funded Alive project is prototyping ideas, driven by commercial and industrial use cases, that utilize research in organizational modeling, software agents, model-driven engineering, artificial intelligence, the Semantic Web, and Web services to construct tools and demonstrators to address these needs. This article outlines the Alive architecture for service-oriented computing, describes some of the innovative tools we have developed and illustrates it all with a detailed run-through from one of our use cases.