Web Service Offerings Infrastructure (WSOI) - a management infrastructure for XML Web services

Our Web Service Offerings Language (WSOL) enables formal specification of important management information - classes of service (modeled as service offerings), various types of constraint (functional, QoS, access rights), and management statements (e.g., prices, penalties, and management responsibilities) - for XML (Extensible Markup Language) Web services. To demonstrate the usefulness of WSOL for the management of Web services and their compositions, we have developed a corresponding management infrastructure, the Web Service Offerings Infrastructure (WSOI). WSOI enables monitoring and accounting of WSOL service offerings and their dynamic manipulation. To support monitoring of WSOL service offerings, we have extended the Apache Axis open-source SOAP engine with WSOI-specific modules, data structures, and management ports. To support dynamic manipulation of WSOL service offerings, we have developed appropriate algorithms, protocols, and management port types and built into WSOI modules and data structures for their implementation. Apart from provisioning of WSOL-enabled Web services, we are using WSOI to perform experiments comparing dynamic manipulation of WSOL service offerings and alternatives.