Efficient and reliable service selection for heterogeneous distributed software systems

The service-oriented paradigm is emerging as a new approach to heterogeneous distributed software systems composed of services accessed locally or remotely by middleware technology. How to select the optimal composited service from a set of functionally equivalent services with different quality of service (QoS) attributes has become an active focus of research in the service community. However, existing middleware solutions or approaches are inefficient as they search all solution spaces. More importantly, they inherently neglect QoS uncertainty owing to the dynamic network environment. In this paper, based on a service composition middleware framework, we propose an efficient and reliable service selection approach that attempts to select the best reliable composited service by filtering low-reliability services through the computation of QoS uncertainty. The approach first employs information theory and probability theory to abandon high-QoS-uncertainty services and downsize the solution space. A reliability fitness function is then designed to select the best reliable service for composited services. We experimented with real-world and synthetic datasets and compared our approach with other approaches. Our results show that our approach is not only fast, but also finds more reliable composited services.     

基于分层混合专家神经网络的Web服务失效检测机制

利用反射中间件来检测导致服务失效的各种状态和参数，从服务内部动态调整服务运行状态和配置，可以有效地避免服务失效．将分层混合专家神经网络（Hierarchical Mixtures of Expert neural network, HME）配置在反射中间件的元层中，用来检测这些服务的失效环境状态，并解决引起Web服务失效的状态．利用极大似然（Expectation Maximization, EM）的学习策略对分层混合专家网络进行训练．实验和数据分析表明，HME网络作为反射中间件检测技术可以高效地对服务失效进行检测和辨识．     

Simulation-based analysis of middleware service impact on system reliability: Experiment on Java application server

Being a popular runtime infrastructure in the era of Internet, middleware provides more and more services to support the development, deployment and management of distributed systems. At the same time, the reliability of middleware services has a significant impact on the overall reliability of the system. Different services have different impacts and different service fault-tolerance solutions have different costs and risks. Therefore, the identification of the services that greatly affect the whole system reliability is the major obstacle to achieving reliable middleware-based systems. In this paper, we present an analytical framework to automatically reason and quantify such impacts when deploying the target system. In this framework, faults are represented by exceptions in modern programming languages; service failures are simulated by software fault injection; reliability impacts are measured by scenarios. This framework is demonstrated on multiple JEE application servers, including JBoss, JonAS and PKUAS. The experiments on two JEE blueprint applications, namely JPS and ECperf, show the feasibility, the applicability and the usability of this framework.     

Failure analysis and tolerance strategies in web service ecosystems

Service‐oriented computing and cloud computing are playing critical roles in supporting business collaboration over the Internet. Thanks to the latest development in computing technologies, various large‐scale, evolving, and rapidly growing service ecosystems emerge. However, service failures greatly hamper the usability and reputation of service ecosystems. In the previous work, service failure is not adequately studied from an ecosystem's perspective. To address this gap, we propose a service failure analysis framework based on a complex network model of service ecosystem. This framework comprises a feature model of failed services and several service failure impact indicators. By applying the framework, empirical analysis of failed service features and failure impact assessment can be implemented more easily and precisely. Moreover, to provide failure tolerance strategies for service ecosystems, a novel composition‐based service substitution method is designed to replace the failed services with functional similar ones, such that the service systems are more robust when a failure occurs. As the new substitution method requires fewer structural data of services, it is more convenient to be applied in present RESTful Representational State Transfer (REST) service environment. Both the framework and the service substitution method are tested on real‐world data set, and their usability and efficiency are demonstrated. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Context-based matching for Web service composition

In this paper, we propose a novel matching framework for Web service composition. The framework combines the concepts of Web service, context, and ontology. We adopt a broad definition of context for Web services, encompassing all information needed for enabling interactions between clients and providers. Context-based matching for Web services requires dealing with three major research thrusts: context categorization, modeling, and matching. We first propose an ontology-based categorization of contextual information in Web service environments. We then define a two-level mechanism for modeling Web service contexts. In the first level, service providers create context specifications using category-specific Web service languages and standards. In the second level, context specifications are enveloped by policies (called context policies) using WS-Policy standard. Finally, we present a peer-to-peer architecture for matching context policies. The architecture relies on a context matching engine, context policy assistants, and context community services. Community services implement rule-based techniques for comparing context policies. Recommended by: Zakaria Maamar     

基于进程代数的Web服务合成的替换分析

Web服务合成是Web服务研究领域的热点问题,Web服务的替换与Web服务合成密切相关且对于Web服务合成系统的健壮性有重要作用.使用进程代数作为形式化的工具描述Web服务,对合成中的行为特征进行推导,分析由于异步交互对Web服务合成设计与实现产生的影响.在此之上,基于服务合成正确性的定义,提出一种一致性关系,若新服务与将要被替换的参与合成的服务之间存在这种关系,那么替换后的服务合成仍然是正确的,并且替换是上下文无关的.     

Virtual machine support for zero‐loss Internet service recovery and upgrade

Software is critical for Internet service availability since an Internet service may become unavailable due to software faults or software maintenance. In this paper, we propose a framework to allow zero‐loss recovery and online maintenance for Internet services. The framework is based on the virtual machine (VM) technology and a connection migration technique called FT‐TCP. It can recover transient application/operating system faults and it allows fault recovery and online maintenance on a single host. The framework substantially enhances FT‐TCP so that it can be run efficiently in the VM environment. Specifically, we propose techniques to reduce the inter‐VM switches and communication. Moreover, we propose service‐specific optimizations to reduce the recovery time of FT‐TCP. Finally, the framework provides an interface for the service designers to implement more service‐specific optimizations. The framework was implemented by modifying an open source VM monitor, Xen, and the Linux kernel running on top of Xen. The effectiveness and efficiency of the framework were evaluated by running two Internet services, WWW proxy and FTP, on the proposed framework and measuring the impact on their performance. According to the experimental results, our approach causes only slight performance overhead (i.e. less than 4%) and memory overhead (i.e. less than 750 KB) for both the services. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

虚拟计算环境中服务行为与质量的一致性

提出了一种用Petri net对服务行为和服务质量进行统一建模的框架.基于该框架所提出的统一的服务行为和服务质量的一致性规则可以在服务的查找和替换中综合判断服务行为和服务质量的一致性.自行开发的SOBECA(service-oriented, behavior and capability support architecture)中间件系统在现有的Web服务标准上增加了服务行为和服务质量的描述,可以更好地自动化支持服务行为和服务质量的一致性检查,同时也验证了上述框架的合理性.     

Web service conversation modeling: a cornerstone for e-business automation

Web services are emerging as a promising technology for effectively automating interorganizational interactions. However, despite the growing interest, several issues remain to be addressed to provide Web services with benefits similar to what traditional middleware brings to intraorganizational application integration. We identify a framework that builds on current standards to help developers define extended service models and richer Web service abstractions. The framework's main feature is a conversation metamodel derived from our analysis of e-commerce portal sites.     

Modelling,validating, and ranking of secure service compositions

In the world of large‐scale applications, software as a service (SaaS) in general and use of microservices, in particular, is bringing service‐oriented architectures to a new level: Systems in general and systems that interact with human users (eg, sociotechnical systems) in particular are built by composing microservices that are developed independently and operated by different parties. At the same time, SaaS applications are used more and more widely by enterprises as well as public services for providing critical services, including those processing security or privacy of relevant data. Therefore, providing secure and reliable service compositions is increasingly needed to ensure the success of SaaS solutions. Building such service compositions securely is still an unsolved problem. In this paper, we present a framework for modelling, validating, and ranking secure service compositions that integrate both automated services as well as services that interact with humans. As a unique feature, our approach for ranking services integrates validated properties (eg, based on the result of formally analysing the source code of a service implementation) as well as contractual properties that are part of the service level agreement and, thus, not necessarily ensured on a technical level.     

A simulation-based approach for dynamic process management at web service platforms

Web services technology is being adopted as a viable deployment approach for future distributed software systems that enable business-to-business and business-to-consumer interactions across the open and dynamic internet environment. Recent research is focused on developing support technologies for web service discovery, on-demand service composition, and robust execution to facilitate web services based deployment of business processes. Developing techniques to cope with the volatile and open nature of the web during execution of composite services at the service platform is essential for delivering reliable and acceptable performance in this new process delivery framework. In this paper, we propose a simulation-based framework to guide scheduling of composite service execution. Online simulation of the dynamics of the open environment is used for scheduling service requests at the service platform. Comparison of the look-ahead simulation for different scheduling policies with the current execution state provides guidelines for service execution in order to cope with system volatility. We have implemented a prototype of the proposed framework and illustrate the feasibility of our approach with experimental studies.     

Achieving Flexibility in Off-the-Shelf Middleware Services Integration

The development of component-based software engineering enables the construction of application servers by integrating reliable OTS middleware services. However it is di cult to achieve exibility in conventional hard coding way. In this paper, we propose a exible OTS middleware services integration framework to address this problem. In this framework, we de ne two kinds of modules: the middleware service contract module to represent the stable contract which speci es the abstract interaction logic between the application server and a kind of middleware services, and the middleware service implementation module to encapsulate the mutable implementation details of di erent OTS middleware services in a uni ed way. Additionally, we propose a module management mechanism to enable the application server to replace the OTS products at runtime via con guration. We implement the framework in a J2EE application server, and the evaluations show that our framework effectively reduces the cost and the time of maintaining and customizing the OTS middleware services-based application server.     

WSB: a broker‐centric framework for quality‐driven web service discovery

Web service interfaces can be discovered through several means, including service registries, search engines, service portals, and peer‐to‐peer networks. But discovering Web services in such heterogeneous environments is becoming a challenging task and raises several concerns, such as performance, reliability, and robustness. In this paper, we introduce the Web Service Broker (WSB) framework that provides a universal access point for discovering Web services. WSB uses a crawler to collect the plurality of Web services disseminated throughout the Web, continuously monitor the behavior of Web services in delivering the expected functionality, and enable clients to articulate service queries tailored to their needs. The framework features ranking algorithms we have developed which are capable of ranking services according to Quality of Web Service parameters. WSB can be seamlessly integrated into the existing service‐oriented architectures. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种语义Web服务调用代理的模型与实现

Web Service是最新的程序间协作交互技术,当前的Web Service应用开发过程中,程序员需要预先知道某个服务的接口细节,并写入应用程序中,这样的紧耦合降低了不同服务之间的互换性,该文提出了一种使用语义Web和Agent技术在客户端发现和调度Web Service的系统模型,并通过原型系统的演示说明其灵活性。     

Scalable Grid‐wide capacity allocation with the SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS)

The SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS) allocates capacity in collaborative Grid environments by coordinating enforcement of Grid‐wide usage limits as a means to offer usage guarantees and prevent overuse. SGAS employs a credit‐based allocation model where Grid capacity is granted to projects via Grid‐wide quota allowances that can be spent across the Grid resources. The resources collectively enforce these allowances in a soft, real‐time manner. SGAS is built on service‐oriented principles with a strong focus on interoperability and Web services standards. This article covers the SGAS design and implementation, which, besides addressing inherent Grid challenges (scale, security, heterogeneity, decentralization), emphasizes generality and flexibility to produce a customizable system with lightweight integration into different middleware and scheduling system combinations. We focus the discussion around the system design, a flexible allocation model, middleware integration experiences and scalability improvements via a distributed virtual banking system, and finally, an extensive set of testbed experiments. The experiments evaluate the performance of SGAS in terms of response times, request throughput, overall system scalability, and its performance impact on the Globus Toolkit 4 job submission software. We conclude that, for all practical purposes, the quota enforcement overhead incurred by SGAS on job submissions is not a limiting factor for the job‐handling capacity of the job submission software. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于协同过滤的可信Web服务推荐方法

为了实现对可信Web服务的推荐,在分析了Web服务推荐技术与电子商务推荐技术的不同的基础上,提出了一种基于协同过滤的可信Web服务推荐方法。首先,根据已有成果对待组装应用的可信需求进行评估,根据此需求对相似用户进行首次筛选;然后在首次筛选的用户中,根据用户使用服务后的评分数据和用户信息来对相似用户进行二次筛选,经过两次筛选得到最终推荐用户。在根据用户对服务的评分数据计算用户之间的相似性时,考虑了不同服务对于用户间相似性的贡献值;在根据用户信息计算用户之间的相似性时,考虑到用户信息之间非线性的特点,引入了欧几里得距离公式来计算其相似值;在产生推荐的过程中还考虑了不诚实用户和用户数不足的问题。模拟实验结果表明该方法能够有效地对可信Web服务进行推荐。     

A Novel Intermediary Framework for Dynamic Edge Service Composition

Multimedia content,user mobility and heterogeneous client devices require novel systems that are able to support ubiquitous access to the Web resources.In this scenario,solutions that combine flexibility,efficiency and scalability in offering edge services for ubiquitous access are needed.We propose an original intermediary framework,namely Scalable Intermediary Software Infrastructure (SISI),which is able to dynamically compose edge services on the basis of user preferences and device characteristics.The SISI framework exploits a per-user profiling mechanism,where each user can initially set his/her personal preferences through a simple Web interface,and the system is then able to compose at run-time the necessary components.The basic framework can be enriched through new edge services that can be easily implemented through a programming model based on APIs and internal functions.Our experiments demonstrate that flexibility and edge service composition do not affect the system performance.We show that this framework is able to chain multiple edge services and to guarantee stable performance.