Khouloud Boukadi

LinkedWS: A Novel Web Services Discovery Model Based on the Metaphor of Social Networks

Abstract Web services are increasingly becoming the de facto implementation for the service-oriented architecture paradigm for enterprises due to their ease of use. Nevertheless, discovering these Web services is still hindered by many challenges that are partially attributed to shortcomings found in the discovery registry models (e.g., UDDI) used nowadays. These registries do not, for example, capture the rich information resulting from the various types of interactions between Web services. To address these shortcomings, and inspired by the conventional human social networks on the net, like Facebook and Twitter, we develop LinkedWS , a social networks discovery model to capture the different interactions that occur between Web services. Based on these interactions, specialized relationships are spawned and discerned. Examples of these relationships are collaboration and substitution. This paper describes LinkedWS and its potential, and reports on its implementation status.

CWSC4EC: how to employ context, web service, and community in enterprise collaboration

Web services are becoming an essential support for inter-enterprise collaborative business process. Nevertheless, in spite of the crucial progress in Web service technologies there is some shortage especially in the discovery and selection phase. In fact, Web services are selected based on functional criteria. But, in the case of business process collaboration there is a need to consider more pragmatic criteria such as context parameters. In this work we present a framework for collaboration process creation. It enables Web services selection based on contextual description. For this end, we present a novel categorization for the context suitable to the inter-enterprise collaboration. The context categorization is represented using a flexible and dynamic ontology-based model. In order to enhance Web service selection and to improve the manageability of a high number of Web services, we use the community concept in order to gather specific domain Web services. The presented framework uses abstract templates called Goal templates to insure an abstract description of required web services. Goal templates gather both functional and contextual parameters used to select suitable services.

A framework to coordinate web services in composition scenarios

This paper looks into the coordination of web services following their acceptance to participate in a composition scenario. We identify two types of behaviours associated with component web services: operational and control behaviours. These behaviours are used to specify composite web services that are built upon component web services. In term of orchestration a composite web service could be either centralised or peer-to-peer. To support component/composite web services coordination per type of orchestration schema, various types of messages are exchanged between these web services. Experiments showing the use of these messages are reported in this paper as well.

Towards an Approach to Defining Capacity-Driven Web Service

This paper is an overview of how capacity-driven Web services are defined and put into action. Because of the specificities of these Web services compared to regular(i.e., mono-capacity) Web services, the way they are looked into is different and occurs through four steps known as description, discovery, composition, and enactment. A Web service that is empowered with several capacities, that are in fact operations to execute, has to know which capacity out of several it has to choose and then, trigger at run-time.For this purpose, this Web service takes into account the requirements like data and network that are put on each capacity it was empowered with. A feasibility discussion on the implementation of capacity-driven Web services is presented in this paper, as well.

A New Approach to Model Web Services' Behaviors Based on Synchronization

This paper introduces a novel approach for modelling and specifying behaviors of Web services. This approach excludes Web services from any composition scenario and sheds the light on two types of behaviors: control and operational. The control behavior illustrates the business logic that underpins the functioning of a Web service, and the operational behavior regulates the execution progress of this control behavior by stating the actions to carry out and the constraints to put on this progress. To synchronize both behaviors at run-time, conversational messages are developed and permit conveying various details between these two behaviors. A prototype showing the use of these conversational messages is presented in this paper as well.

A Multi-layer Framework for Virtual Organizations Creation in Breeding Environment

Nowadays collaboration among organizations in the so called Virtual Organizations (VOs) is the most advanced form to make business. Their emergence and growing are closely related to integrated information and communication technology (ICT). One of the promising approaches to carry out the agility and flexibility in VO creation is defined under the assumption of a VO Breeding Environment (VBE). To support such agile organizations, an efficient IT system and methodologies should be set in order to facilitate their daily management activities. Service-oriented software technologies provide promising means to regulate and enforce coordination of cross-organisational business services interactions but lack organizational abstractions and methodology. This paper proposes a framework for collaborative network coordination in the VBEs’s context. The proposed framework satisfies flexibility and agility requirements of virtual organization using a multi layer approach combining VBE management systems layer that assist flexible VO creation, a semantic interoperability layer essential for promoting integration on the basis of common language that describe VO concepts and inherent dependencies, and a service oriented layer that introduces the concept of service domain that encapsulates business processes fitting VO requirements.

A decision-making method for business process outsourcing to the cloud based on business motivation model and AHP

Outsourcing business processes to the cloud is among the proposed solutions to help SME to emerge in the market and enhance their added value. However, the benefits of such solution highly depend on several factors specific to the enterprise context. Hence, an enterprise needs a decision-making method to assist it in deciding whether its business plan calls for cloud computing adoption, which parts of its business process are the most profitable from outsourcing, which cloud computing model is the most suitable, ... This paper highlights the need and proposes a context-aware decision method for cloud adoption to enable enterprises to understand, self-assess, and select an appropriate cloud computing model aligned to their business context. Besides proposing an appropriate enterprise context, this paper shows how the business motivation model of an enterprise also enhances the outsourcing decision-making by taking into account the business plan and vision of the enterprise.

An Aspect Oriented Approach for Context-Aware Service Domain Adapted to E-Business

This paper proposes an architecture for a high-level structure called Service Domain which orchestrates a set a of related IT services based on BPEL specification. Service Domain was developed to enhance the Web service concept to suit e-business collaboration. Service Domains are developed to be context aware. Our approach highlights the benefits of bringing Aspect Oriented Programming to ensure context aware services. Thus, context awareness is guaranteed by enhancing BPEL execution using Aspect oriented paradigms. The proposed approach is illustrated with a running example that shows how Service Domain presents different behaviours according to the context changes.

A Comprehensive Framework for Business Process Outsourcing to the Cloud.

The lack of a framework that provides for business process outsourcing to the cloud hinders the widespread adoption of this emerging computing environment. Unlike the multiple decision methods related to outsourcing classical applications in a cloud environment, there is no standard dealing with the outsourcing of business processes starting from the enterprise business concerns to select the appropriate business process to be outsourced, to a finer level of decision to select the business process fragments to be supported by the cloud. In this paper, we first present an end-to-end framework that addresses some of these shortages. The presented framework, entitled Business Process Outsourcing to the cloud (BPO2C), covers the outsourcing process lifecyle. Indeed, the BPO2C framework elaborates several phases pertinent to the outsourcing decision, starting from the elaboration of the enterprise business motivations to identify the implied business process in the outsourcing decision, to the identification of outsourceable process fragments to minimize the business process costs, duration and to mitigate cloud risks.

A Decision Method for Business Process Outsourcing Based on Enterprise Context

Business process outsourcing has regained further attention with the emergence of Cloud computing. In fact, enterprises can benefit from the cloud at the service (i.e., business), the platform and/or the infrastructure levels. Face to these various benefits, an enterprise that desires to outsource and/or deploy parts of its business process in the Cloud must resolve two decisional points: which part of its business process to outsource, which Cloud and which level of the Cloud environment are the most beneficial. The resolution of these decisional points must take into account several contextual factors that are specific to each enterprise. This paper presents the elements of enterprise context that influence the decision whether to outsource or not in a Cloud environment. In addition, it shows how AHP can be used to assist manager in taking their decision.