Table Of ContentSemantic Web
Services Challenge
Results from the First Year
SEMANTIC WEB AND BEYOND
Computing for Human Experience
Series Editors:
Ramesh Jain Amit Sheth
University of California, Irvine University of Georgia
http://ngs.ics.uci.edu/ http://lsdis.cs.uga.edu/~amit
As computing becomes ubiquitous and pervasive, computing is increasingly becoming
an extension of human, modifying or enhancing human experience. Today's car reacts
to human perception of danger with a series of computers participating in how to handle
the vehicle for human command and environmental conditions. Proliferating sensors
help with observations, decision making as well as sensory modifications. The emergent
semantic web will lead to machine understanding of data and help exploit
heterogeneous, multi-source digital media. Emerging applications in situation
monitoring and entertainment applications are resulting in development of experiential
environments.
SEMANTIC WEB AND BEYOND
Computing for Human Experience
addresses the following goals:
(cid:190) brings together forward looking research and technology that will shape our
world more intimately than ever before as computing becomes an extension of
human experience;
(cid:190) covers all aspects of computing that is very closely tied to human perception,
understanding and experience;
(cid:190) brings together computing that deal with semantics, perception and experience;
(cid:190) serves as the platform for exchange of both practical technologies and far
reaching research.
AdditionalTitles in the Series:
Ontology Management: Semantic Web, Semantic Web Services, and Business Applications
edited by Martin Hepp, Pieter De Leenheer, Aldo de Moor, York Sure; ISBN: 978-0-387-69899-1
The Semantic Web:Real-World Applications from Industry edited by Jorge Cardoso, Martin
Hepp, Miltiadis Lytras; ISBN: 978-0-387-48530-0
Social Networks and the Semantic Web by Peter Mika; ISBN: 978-0-387-71000-6
Ontology Alignment: Bridging the Semantic Gap by Marc Ehrig, ISBN: 0-387-32805-X
Semantic Web Services: Processes and Applications edited by Jorge Cardoso, Amit P. Sheth,
ISBN 0-387-30239-5
Canadian Semantic Web edited by Mamadou T. Koné., Daniel Lemire; ISBN 0-387-29815-0
Semantic Management of Middleware by Daniel Oberle; ISBN: 0-387-27630-0
Additional information about this series can be obtained from
http://www.springer.com ISSN: 1559-7474
Semantic Web
Services Challenge
Results from the First Year
Edited by
Charles Petrie
Stanford University
Stanford, CA, USA
Tiziana Margaria
University of Potsdam
Potsdam, Germany
Holger Lausen
Michal Zaremba
University of Innsbruck
Innsbruck, Austria
1 3
Editors:
Charles Petrie Tiziana Margaria
Stanford University Chair Service and Software Engineering
Computer Science Dept. Institute for Informatics
353 Serra Mall University Potsdam
Stanford, CA 94305-9020 August-Bebel-Str.89 – Haus 4
[email protected] D-14482 Potsdam, Germany
[email protected]
Holger Lausen Michal Zaremba
Semantics Technology Institute (STI) Semantics Technology Institute (STI)
University of Innsbruck ICT University of Innsbruck ICT
Technologie Park Technologie Park
Technikerstraße 21a Technikerstraße 21a
6020 Innsbruck Austria 6020 Innsbruck Austria
[email protected] [email protected]
I SBN-13: 978-0-387-72495-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-0-387-72496-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008935405
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part
without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media,
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connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of
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The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar
terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of
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Printed on acid-free paper
springer.com
Foreword by James A. Hendler
Backin2001,Ipublishedapapercalled”AgentsandtheSemanticWeb,”[1]which
outlinedavisionofhowthethen-newSemanticWebtechnologiesbeingexploredat
DARPAcouldbeusedasamechanismforconnectingdescriptionsofsoftwaretothe
dynamiccontentenginesoftheWeb-essentially,outliningtheideathatwhatwenow
callWebservicescouldbetiedtosemanticsandontologies.Thepaperhasbecome
one of my more highly cited ones, but really it was more of a vision paper than a
technologicalprescription.Luckilyforthosepeopleinterested,SheilaMcIlraithand
hercolleaguespublishedapaperinthatsameissue[2](whichhasbeenevenmore
highly cited) which outlined a technical approach for Semantic Web Services, the
namebywhichthisareahascometobeknown.
Intheyearssince,SemanticWebServiceshavebecomeanincreasinglyimpor-
tant part of Semantic Web research. This work has essentially co-evolved with the
growingimportanceofservice-orientedarchitectures(SOAs),totheindustrialcom-
putingsector,providingasetofinteresting,andrealistic,challengestoresearchers.
The area has thrived on a combination of research funding for universities, espe-
ciallyfromtheEU’sframework6andframework7programs,andindustrialsupport
withincorporatelaboratories.Infact,sincethecoiningofthetermin2001,aGoogle
Scholar search on ”semantic web services” now finds over 8,000 publications that
discusssomeaspectofthisintegrationofsemanticsandWebservices,astaggering
amountofresearchinsuchashortamountoftime.
However, this growth in interest in the area, and the wide swath of research it
engendered,alsoledtosignificantconfusionover,well,whatwasitreallyallgood
for? Could the addition of Semantics really increase the capabilities of Web Ser-
vices?Couldthetheoreticalresultsfromtheresearchlabsbetransitionedintowork-
ableandscalablesystems?Couldthetechniquesoftheresearchersbemadetowork
withthecommerciallanguages-SOAP,WSDL,BPEL,etc.-beingusedinthereal
world?Findingpapersthatshowedcleanresultsontoyproblemswaseasy,butfind-
ing practicable technologies that could be used in real world applications required
moreeffort.
In short, we had an odd situation. With Service-Oriented Computing becoming
moreandmoreimportantasameansofsoftwareengineeringfordistributedsystems,
VI ForewordbyJamesA.Hendler
theSemanticWebcommunitywasfindingithardandhardertoexplainwhatitwas
abletodoortocomparethemanycompetingapproachesthatwerebeingdeveloped.
Themanydifferentapproachescouldnoteasilybereconciledonpurelytheoretical
grounds, rather, an empirical means of evaluating their capabilities with standard
testbedswasclearlyneeded.
Starting in the middle of this decade, a set of workshops was held to explore
thisissue.Researcherswhofelttheirworkwasreachingacapabilitylevelthatcould
lead to transition came together to explore how they could develop testbeds that
could compare and contrast the various approaches to mediation, composition and
choreography, and discover of Web Services that were being proposed. The idea
ofaSemanticWebServicesChallengewasborn,andin2006thefirstworkshopto
includethechallengewasheld.Inthefollowingyear,aseriesofthesemeetingswere
heldaroundtheworld,andanumberofsystemsweretested.Thisbookistheresult
-thefirstcollectiontopulltogethertheseresultsandtoallowreaderstoevaluatethe
results. Whether they are professionals, interested in using this information to help
shapeinvestmentsintechnology,orstudents,lookingforuptodateinformationon
theapplicationofsemanticstoWebServices,readerswillfindthisbooktocontaina
wealthofinformation.
SincetheearlydaysoftheSemanticWeb,Ihaveoftenbeenaskedtogivetalks
about emerging trends and capabilities. I must confess that in the past two years,
I have avoided discussion of Semantic Web Services due to the very confusion I
mentionedearlier.However,thequestionI’vebeenaskedmostoftenis”whatisthe
status of Semantic Web Services?” and until now, I didn’t really have very good
answers.Thus,Iamindebtedtotheeditorofthisbookforalltheworkhehasdone
in helping to create and run the challenge, and now in making sure that the results
aredocumentedinthisbook.It’llbenicetoputthistopicbackinmytalks!
ProfessorJamesA.Hendler
RensselaerPolytechnicInstitute,NY,USA
August11,2008
References
1. James A. Hendler: Agents and the Semantic Web. In 16(2):30-37, IEEE Intelligent
Systems(2001)
2. Sheila A. McIlraith, Tran Cao Son, and Honglei Zeng: Semantic Web Services. In
16(2):46-53,IEEEIntelligentSystems(2001)
Foreword by Michael L. Brodie
ThisbookdocumentslessonslearnedinthefirstyearoftheSemanticWebServices
Challenge-thefirstsignificantsteptowardsthecreationofasetofbenchmarksand
processes by which to define and measure the performance and correctness of se-
mantic web services at web-scale. The Semantic Web Services Challenge is at an
earlystageinthedevelopmentofsemanticwebservicesbenchmarksfortheWebof
services,similartothatoftheDatabaseDerbyinmid-1980sforrelationaldatabases.
As with relational databases and the Web of documents, the Web of services will
have an enormous impact on our increasingly digital lives that in turn will become
increasinglydependentontheunderlyingtechnologiesincludingsemanticwebser-
vices. Unlike relational databases, the Web of services posses, as does each Next
GenerationofComputing,qualitativelygreaterchallengesindefiningandachieving
performanceandcorrectness.Thelessonstoldinthisbookarenotonlyguidesdown
thatpath,theywillbethetalestoldoftheoriginsoftheWebofservices,justastoday
wetelltalesofTedCoddandoriginsofrelationaldatabasesandofJimGrayandthe
originsofrelationalbenchmarks.
Letmetrytoputthisbookinanhistoricalperspectiveandtellyouwhythistopic
isimportantandchallenging.
In our increasingly digital world the Web has become an integral part of our
professional and personal lives. ”Just Google it!” can be heard from Anchorage to
Zambia,fromexecutivesinboardroomsto13yearoldsingradeschools,togrannies
inkitchens.WeareconstantlyamazedattheWeb,thelargestman-madeartifactever
created,withover30billionWebpages-5pagesforeveryman,woman,andchild
ontheplanet.MoreinformationisaddedtotheWebyearlythanhasbeencreatedin
thepreceding5,000yearsandwillgrowbyafactorofsixfrom2007to2010with
more than 11 billion searches each month, almost double the world’s population.
While the size and the growth of the Web constantly amaze us, what may be more
strikingistheimpactoftheWebonourworld.
Given the significance and size of the Web, how readily can we find what we
need? A search for my name produces 227,000 pages. A search for my company
produces98millionpages.WhilethefirstentriesareoftenwhatIwant,howwould
anautomatedprocessselectthecorrectoneforaspecificpurpose?Thisimprecision
VIII ForewordbyMichaelL.Brodie
prohibits current web search technology for automated business interactions. The
Semantic Web vision is to augment web resources with meta-data to improve web
searchandfacilitateautomatedinteractionsbetweenwebresources.
Service-orientationisemergingastheparadigmoftheNext-Generationofcom-
puting.Happily,itwilltakesometime-timetofigureoutwhatwearedoing.Withits
originsinthe1970sinabstractdatatypes,objects,andcontainers,thenotionofaser-
vice-aninteroperable,composable,reusable,andremotelyinvokablefunction-will
evolve,mature,andpersist.SoservicesarenotJohnnie-come-latelys.Thetypically
overblownestimatesofnewtechnologyadoptionandgrowtharefarfromrealityfor
services in 2007, a year that marked the first significant adoption of services since
theirintroductionin2000.In2008,1,000servicesisconsideredlargeevenforvery
largeenterprises.Convertingthemajorsystemsofalargeenterprisemightresultin
1millionservicesofwhichlessthan50%wouldbepublishedexternallyresultingin
aWebofservicestwoordersofmagnitudelargerthantheWebofdocuments.
Aswebandservicetechnologiesevolve,thewebwillmovefromaWebofdocu-
mentstoaWeboffunctionalanddataservicesinwhichawebpagemaycontain5to
10services.Serviceswillmovethewebfromthesurfaceweb,informationavailable
tocurrentwebbrowsers,tothedeepweb,informationandservicesindatabasesand
systemsthatunderliecurrentwebpages.Thedeepwebisestimatedtobe500times
largerthanthesurfaceweb.
ThemovefromthesurfaceWebofdocumentstoadeepWebofservicesnotonly
increasesthesearchspacebyafactorof500,italsoleadstoaqualitativelynewform
ofcomputing.Thescalepushesthewebbeyondthesizeandcomplexitythatcanbe
dealtwithbyhumans.TheWebofservicesrequiresaservicesautomationsolution
inwhichservicesinteractwithouthumanintervention.Thevisionisforservicesto
achieveagoalbydiscoveringservicesthatmeetarequirementandnegotiatetheuse
ofthatserviceorevenadaptationoftheserviceorcompositionwithotherservices
thatcollectivelymeettherequirement.TheSemanticWebServicesvisionistoen-
hancewebserviceswithmeta-datatoenableautomatedservicediscovery,selection,
negotiation,mediation,adaptation,composition,invocation,andmonitoring.
As we enter the Web of services we face two great challenges - scale and au-
tomation.Whilethesechallengesarefamiliar,thescaleandcomplexityofthisnew
computingenvironmentmaketheseproblemsqualitativelydifferentfrompastcom-
putingenvironments.Scaleposeschallengesofperformancewhileautomationposes
challengesofcorrectness.
Inthepast,performanceissueswereprimarilyaddressedwithhardwareandsys-
temsengineeringsolutions.Whilethesearestillfruitful,wearenowlookingtosoft-
wareforsolutions.Augmentingwebserviceswithsemanticsisasoftwaresolution
emerging from the Semantic Technologies community, a community with little ex-
perience in engineering solutions especially at web-scale. Indeed few communities
haveexperiencewithweb-scalecomputing.Hence,thesemanticwebservicesspace
isnovelinmanywaysandmayrequiremoresophisticatedmeasuresofengineering
aswellasofperformanceandcorrectness.
Itiseasytoenvisageservicesinteractingdynamicallytodiscoverotherservices
with which to negotiate, adapt, and compose, and then to invoke to achieve a re-
ForewordbyMichaelL.Brodie IX
quirement.Itisquiteanothermattertospecifycorrectnessinthiscontext,letalone
achieveitinimplementations.
Almostthreedecadesago,theNextGenerationofComputing,atthetime,faced
similar challenges. In the early 1980’s the projected scale of relational databases
was unimaginable, and like the Web of documents far exceeded its projections. As
with our current Web of services we are facing unimaginable scale and complex-
ity with novel, unproven technology and with few benchmarks. Now, as then, we
requireefficient,scalablesolutionstoproblemsforwhichwelackdefinitionsofcor-
rectness.Butthistimewedonotcontrolthearchitecture,whichisbothdistributed
and emergent. We require objective means of testing whether the new technology
solutionsmeetsrealisticperformanceandcorrectnessrequirements.Wewanttoen-
courageinnovationviacompetitionamongstpossiblesolutions,andthedevelopment
of an objective basis of appropriate measures against which to compare them, and
the standardization of accepted solutions. In addition to providing benchmarks for
emergingtechnologies,wewanttoprovideafocalpointforsuchengineeringchal-
lenges, discussions, and achievements where well-defined industrial problems can
beusedtodriveandtesttechnologysolutions.Ideallysemanticwebservicesbench-
marks will contribute to the development and acceptance of semantic technologies
justasrelationalbenchmarksdidforrelationaltechnology.
Intheearly1980’sseveraldatabasebenchmarkactivitiesemergedascandidates
against which to measure the performance and correctness of emerging relational
database technologies. One of the earliest candidates, The Database Derby, run by
anemergingdatabasemagazine,wasrunasaseriesofworkshopsatdatabasecon-
ferences.Theimportanceandneedforanobjectivedatabasebenchmarkleadtothe
definitionofthe”DebitCredit”benchmark[1]byJimGrayand24academicandin-
dustrialco-authors.By1988eightcompaniesformedtheTransactionProcessingPer-
formance Council (TPC) [2]. Since then, TPC has defined benchmarks with which
tomeasuretheperformanceandcorrectnessofDBMSsandmethodologiesbywhich
they are conducted, fairly and objectively. TPC benchmarks have been used to de-
finerequirementsforemergingworkloadssuchasfore-commerce,decisionsupport,
applicationservers,andwebservices.
Let me conclude with a projection and a challenge to consider as you read this
book.EachNextGenerationofComputingneedsbenchmarks-forthewebservices
era as for the database era. Next Generation challenges will always be at a greater
scaleandcomplexitythanthoseofthepreviousgeneration.However,theWebofser-
vices poses qualitatively greater unknowns and opportunities than did the database
era.Therelationalmodelof1970islargelyintacttoday.Relationaldatabasebench-
marksevolvedwithdramaticallynewworkloadspromptingradicallynewhardware,
engineering, and systems technologies, all within the bounds of the relational data
model.
There is no such constraining model for web services. While the lack of a sin-
glemodelpermitsopportunitiesforothercomputationalandinformationalmodels,
italsoopensthespaceforengineeringandtechnologysolutions.Aretheremultiple
computationalmodelsforwebservicesthatrequiremultiplebenchmarks?IstheSe-
X ForewordbyMichaelL.Brodie
manticWebServicesChallengetheentrancetoawidebutsinglepathtothefuture
ortoamyriadofpathstoparallelbutdistinctcomputationalfutures?
MichaelL.Brodie
ChiefScientistVerizon
Cambridge,MA,USA
August19,2008.
References
1. AMeasureofTransactionProcessingPower, Datamation,April1,1985.
2. http://tpc.org/
