Galaxy: a service shaping approach for addressing the hidden service problem

Abstract

We propose a new service modeling and lookup method based on service shaping. In existing service frameworks, assembling ubiquitous services requires application programmers to translate their requirements to the type space defined by service programmers. This translation, however, disables some of user requirements due to abstraction gap and time gap between the user tasks and service types. This raises a problem which we call the hidden service problem, where an application cannot find a service which satisfies a user's request, even if the service exists. To cope with this problem, we propose a shape-based service framework, called Galaxy. In Galaxy service framework, service programmers are required to describe capability of service, called, shape, for each service in an XML document. Applications can query services by specifying partial shape without depending on programmer-defined types.