Applying Semantic Web Services

2009

The Semantic Business Process Management (SPBM) approach from the SUPER project utilizes a Semantic Execution Environment (SEE) for the automatic discovery, composition, mediation, and invocation of Web services. In order to enable the Semantic Execution Environment, an engineer must create semantic descriptions of functional, nonfunctional, and behavioural aspects of Web services and enduser requirements. In this paper we take the first step into the emerging field of Semantic Web Service engineering by identifying a number of application scenarios within which Semantic Web Services can be used and identifying the different engineering activities that the engineer must perform in order to enable these scenarios. Information was elicited directly from those who are actively developing Semantic Web Services by the use of survey. Thus the scenarios are built based on direct input from a cross section of the Semantic Web Service community. The results in this paper act as a starting point for the Semantic Web Service engineering methodology that we are currently in the process of developing.

Semantic Web Processes

The Web coupled with contemporary E-commerce and E-services is enabling a new networked economy [1]. The scope of activities that processes span has moved from intra-enterprise workflows coordinating multiple applications, predefined inter-enterprise and B2B processes, to dynamically defined Web processes among cooperating organizations. Components of technical aspect of the solutions involve the technologies for information exchange (from EDI to XML), software componentization (from CORBA to Web Services), and workflow coordination and collaboration. Semantics is the new component to this mix, as observed at the Amicaola workshop [2], which could enable support both the scalability and increasingly more dynamic nature of these Web processes. To these Semantics-enabled and empowered Web processes we call Semantic Web Processes. This tutorial presents what can be achieved by symbiotic synthesis of two of the hottest R&D and technology application areas: Web services and the Semantic Web. It presents some of the promises and challenges in applying semantics to each of the steps in the Semantic Web Process lifecycle. In particular we present the role of semantics in annotation (Semantic Annotation of Web Services), discovery (Semantic Web Service Discovery), composition (Semantic Process Composition), process execution/enactment (Semantic Web Process Orchestration), and quality of service of Semantic Web Processes. We also review ongoing frameworks and initiatives such as Semantic Web Service Initiative (SWSI) and DAML-S, as well as results from key projects such as the METEOR-S which build upon research, technology and current standards in workflow processes, Semantic Web, Web services and simulation [6].

2008

It has been recognized that due to the autonomy and heterogeneity, of Web services and the Web itself, new approaches should be developed to describe and advertise Web services. The most notable approaches rely on the description of Web services using semantics. This new breed of Web services, termed semantic Web services, will enable the automatic annotation, advertisement, discovery, selection, composition, and execution of interorganization business logic, making the Internet become a common global platform where organizations and individuals communicate with each other to carry out various commercial activities and to provide value-added services. This paper deals with two of the hottest R&D and technology areas currently associated with the Web – Web services and the semantic Web. It describes how semantic Web services extend Web services as the semantic Web improves the current Web, and presents three different conceptual approaches to deploying semantic Web services, namely, ...

International Journal on Web Service Computing (IJWSC), 2012

The growing proliferation of distributed information systems, allows organizations to offer their business processes to a worldwide audience through Web services. Semantic Web services have emerged as a means to achieve the vision of automatic discovery, selection, composition, and invocation of Web services by encoding the specifications of these software components in an unambiguous and machine-interpretable form. Several frameworks have been devised as enabling technologies for Semantic Web services. In this paper, we survey the prominent Semantic Web service frameworks. In addition, a set of criteria is identified and the discussed frameworks are evaluated and compared with respect to these criteria. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the Semantic Web service frameworks can help researchers to utilize the most appropriate one according to their needs.

2004

The next Web generation promises to deliver Semantic Web Services (SWS); services that are self-described and amenable to automated discovery, composition and invocation. A prerequisite to this, however, is the emergence and evolution of the Semantic Web, which provides the infrastructure for the semantic interoperability of Web Services.

Sigmod Record, 2002

Semantic Web Enabled Web Services (SWWS) will transform the web from a static collection of information into a distributed device of computation on the basis of Semantic Web technology making content within the World Wide Web machine-processable and machine-interpretable. Semantic Web Enabled Web Services will allow the automatic discovery, selection and execution of inter-organization business logic making areas like dynamic supply chain composition a reality. In this paper we introduce the vision of Semantic Web Enabled Web Services, describe requirements for building semantics-driven web services and sketch a first draft of a conceptual architecture for implementing semantic web enabled web services.

IEEE Intelligent …, 2004

The Web is moving from being a collection of pages toward a collection of services that interoperate through the Internet. In this paper we show how ontological information improves on the growing Web services infrastructure by adding capability matching and a high degree of autonomy to web services so that they can automatically adapt to changing situations.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006

We present a framework for designing and developing Semantic Web Service applications that span over several enterprises by applying techniques, methodologies, and notations offered by Software engineering, Web engineering, and Business Process modeling. In particular, we propose to exploit existing standards for the specification of business processes (e.g., BPMN), for modeling the cross enterprise process, combined with powerful methodologies, tools and notations (e.g., WebML) borrowed from the Web engineering field for designing and developing semantically rich Web applications, with semi-automatic elicitation of semantic descriptions (i.e., WSMO Ontologies, Goals, Web Services and Mediators) from the design of the applications, with huge advantages in terms of efficiency of the design and reduction of the extra work necessary for semantically annotating the information crossing the organization boundaries.

2007

Semantic Web services will enable the semiautomatic and automatic annotation, advertisement, discovery, selection, composition, and execution of inter-organization business logic, making the Internet become a common global platform where organizations and individuals communicate with each other to carry out various commercial activities and to provide value-added services. There is a growing consensus that Web services alone will not be sufficient to develop valuable solutions due the degree of heterogeneity, autonomy, and distribution of the Web. This paper deals with two of the hottest R&D and technology areas currently associated with the Web – Web services and the Semantic Web. It presents the synergies that can be created between Web Services and Semantic Web technologies to provide a new generation of eservices.