Web Service Composer
We have developed a prototype that guides a user in the dynamic composition of web services. Our semi-automatic process includes presenting matching services to the user at each step of a composition, filtering the possibilities by using semantic descriptions of the services. The generated composition is then directly executable through the WSDL grounding of the services.
Features
- Execution of DAML-S Services
The basic functionality of the composer is to let the users invoke web services annotated with DAML-S. User is presented a list of services registered to the system and can execute an individual web service by entering the values to the input parameters. The DAML-S services are executed using the WSDL grounding information. Our prototype is the first system to directly combine the DAML-S semantic service descriptions with actual invocations of the WSDL descriptions allowing us to execute the composed services on the Web.
You can find some of our example service descriptions here
- Creating compositions
Using the composer one can generate a workflow of web services. The composition is done in a semi-automatic fashion where composer presents the available choices at each step an human controller makes the selection.
Compositions generated by the user can be saved as a new service which can be further used in other compositions.
- Filtering available services
The number of services available on the web will make it infeasible for someone to scroll down a list presenting all the available services . Composer provides a filtering mechanism to limit the services shown and let the user locate the most relevant service for the current task. The ontolgy descriptions of DAML-S ServiceProfiles are used to dynamically build up a filtering panel where constraints on various properties of the service may be entered.
More information
You may find more information related to the composer in the following paper:
Evren Sirin, James Hendler, Bijan Parsia, "Semi-automatic Composition of Web Services using Semantic Descriptions." Accepted to "Web Services: Modeling, Architecture and Infrastructure" workshop in conjunction with ICEIS2003, 2002.
Online Demo
If you have Java Webstart installed on your computer you can run the online demo. (NOTE: The online demo is temporarily not available)You can also download the program and run it locally. The zip file that contains all the Java and Prolog code is here.
Contact Evren Sirin if you have problems with the program.
