Service Discovery as a key element for Integrated Service Infrastructure Platforms

As the line that separates the old circuit switched based telephony, the IP-packet switched based Internet and mobility by the hand of the success of the 2G of cellular phones - blurs more and more, the existent value chains are experiencing a deep recombination due to the clash of the different interests. From the resultant technological melee, the session initiation protocol grows in momentum and seems to establish itself in the telecom-related arena. Parallel to this development, in the traditional IT sector the notion of virtual organisations (VOs) enabling collaborative business across organisational has been evolving implementing a service oriented architecture (SOA). Within the EU funded Akogrimo project, the VO concept has been extended towards mobile dynamic virtual organisation (MDVO) considering additionally the requirements of mobile users and resources. The scenarios for MDVO show a clear need for integration of Web services with multimedia applications together with a wide range of service types. A service discovery (SD) mechanism that makes the integration of heterogeneous services possible, supporting at the same time the concept of VO and mobility is presented in this article. This is not only designed with a pervasive use of services in mind, but it also envisages a "pervasive" rendering of services from the mobile user side.