Automatic service composition using POMDP and provenance data

Service composition is the process of combining services in a specific order to achieve a specific goal, whereby the initial and goal states are determined in advance. The service composition problem is very similar to standard planning problems since the idea is to discover a path between the initial and goal states. In service composition, the composition of services identifies this path. In this paper, we exploit provenance information along with Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDP) to compose the services automatically. The POMDP method has been used in literature for the purpose of robot planning and navigation. In this research, we argue that due to partial observability of service and system states, the POMDP approach provides better solutions for the QoS-aware service composition in dynamic workflow environments. For the purpose of solving the POMDP, service details and the POMDP distributions are learnt from the provenance store. Provenance data contains information regarding workflows, services, their specifications and execution details. This information facilitates the service composition process to be performed more intelligently and efficiently.