Multi-Tier Framework for Management of Web Services' Quality

Abstract

Web services are a new breed of applications that endorse large support from main vendors from industry as well as academia. As the Web services paradigm becomes more mature, its management is crucial to its adoption and success. Existing approaches are often limited to the platforms under which management features are provided. In this chapter, we propose an approach to provide a unique central console for management of both functional and nonfunctional aspects of Web services. In fact, we aim at the development of a framework to provide management features to providers and clients by supporting management activities all along the lifecycle. The framework allows/forces providers to consider management activities while developing their Web services. It allows clients to select appropriate Web services using different criteria (e.g., name, quality, etc.). Clients also make use of the framework to check if the Web services they are actually using or planning to use are behaving correctly. We evaluate the Web services management features of our framework using a composite Web service.