A Semantic Based Framework for Supporting Negotiation in Service Oriented Architectures

Negotiation is required before invoking a service in order to identify how the invocation must occur in terms of functional and non functional criteria. This process is possible when all the involved parties agree on the same negotiation protocol (e.g., bilateral negotiations). Considering a service oriented architecture (SOA), this negotiation protocol cannot be predefined, but it must be selected by considering the negotiation capabilities of the involved services.In this work, we propose a semantic based framework for supporting the negotiation in SOA. Specifically, the framework allows to express the negotiation capabilities of service requesters and providers and proposes a mechanism for discovering the negotiation protocols that can be enacted when a negotiation is required. To improve the flexibility of the framework, the concept of delegation is introduced to deal with the situation in which a party, that is not able to support the negotiation protocol, wants to participate in a negotiation. In this case, the negotiation can be fully or partially delegated to one or more other parties that, instead, are able to support the negotiation protocol.