Aggregating, Operating, Sharing and Utilizing Internet-Based Services with the VINCA Approach

Today, when the Internet is concerned, one seldom thinks about the network itself and the TCP/IP suite only. With the boom of Web applications, Internet services, new business models and innovative computing paradigms (e.g. software-as-a-service model and cloud computing), the Internet has evolved into an indispensable social infrastructure and the largest computing platform of the world as well. It remains a challenging issue herein how end users can "program" and share their own dependable internet-based applications with cyber services and within virtual communities in cyberspace. In the first part of this tutorial, we discuss the above-stated trends, identify the bottlenecks of the contemporary service computing approaches and Web service technologies, in particular when data and discrete events are concerned, and raise some considerations for further developments.