A Context-Based and Policy-Driven Method to Design and Develop Composite Web Services

Abstract

Web services are nowadays attracting the attention of both academia and industry. However, a very little has so far been accomplished in terms of design and development methods that assist those who are responsible for specifying and running applications based on Web services. For this purpose, we developed CP4WS that stands for Context and Policy for Web Services. CP4WS is a context-based and policy-driven method for designing and developing composite Web services. Policies manage various aspects related to Web services like participation in composition and adjustment due to changes in the environment, and context provides the necessary information that enables for instance to trigger the appropriate policies and to regulate the interactions between Web services according to the current state of the environment. CP4WS consists of several steps such as user needs identification and Web services behavior specification. Each step has a specific graphical notation that facilitates the representation, description, and validation of the composition operations of Web services. A running scenario that illustrates the use of CP4WS is presented in the article as well.