Development and Application of Web Services Mini-Track

Web services are a relatively new technology that researchers are taking an increasing interest in. Web services are established on a set of XML-based technology standards used in the context of applicationto-application interaction in a distributed computing environment. A Web service has an interface described in a machine-processable format. Other systems interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its description using SOAP messages, typically conveyed using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with other Web-related standards. As with most new phenomenon, several streams of research have sought to identify ways that Web services can be used. Early literature in this area has sought to understand the uses of Web services, its current limitations, and potential solutions to resolve those limitations. For example, while core standards for the interface description and message transport have matured and are being widely implemented, standards relating to other layers of the Web services “technology stack” (e.g., orchestration, security, and reliability) are still emerging. In the 9 papers presented here, the discussion ranges broadly across this domain. The first set of papers can be best categorized as addressing issues related to the management and interaction of Web services. Nasution et al. propose a systems approach to cope with the complexity of an Internet infrastructure utilizing Web services. The researchers both describe and detail implementation results of a proposed development architecture. Sen et al., on the other hand, addresses the issue of fault tolerance for an interorganizational workflow management system. The approach that they employ is a checkpointing scheme to be included in new, higher-level standards. Finally, Tartanoglu and Issarny address the issue of dependability of composite services via a Web services conversion language. In the next set of papers, issues related to the application and adoption of Web services is addressed. In the first article, Ciganek et al. present the findings from an exploratory study in the financial industry investigating key factors preventing or slowing down the adoption of Web services, why those factors influence the adoption process, and identify the changes that need to occur to promote Web services adoption. In the next article, Maamar et al. discuss the way context can be used for Web services personalization. In the final paper of this set, Fung et al. addresses the emerging discipline of FlowService-Quality engineering. Based on a service flow example, the authors illustrate a dynamic evaluation of Computational Quality Attributes (CQA) in the context of BPEL4WS with service-level agreements augmented with CQA operations. The final set of papers relates to Web services security and reliability issues. In the first paper of this set, Matheus introduces a novel approach for declaring information object access restrictions, based on XML encoding. Prasad and Balasooriya propose Web Coordination Bonds to allow Web processes to hook together in a desired structure to enforce automatic information flow, group constraints, and data/control dependencies. In the last paper of this set, Cai and Shankaranarayanan describe an application of Web services for managing data quality in a B2B information exchange context. Accordingly, these authors then propose a framework for managing data quality in interorganizational settings using an information product approach. In summary, the topics examined in these 9 papers reflect the wide range of interests and possibilities within the relatively new domain of Web services research. Collectively these papers take an interesting look across a variety of topics in the Web services area and provide impulses relevant for practitioners and future academic research.