Efficient Discovery of Provider Services in a Cloud-Based Supply Chain

This paper proposes a framework of services selection and classification for an efficient provider's services discovery in a cloud-based supply chain. This framework combines the advantages of the web service technology and agent paradigm to select dynamically the best services among those that operated in a supply chain. It is based on two levels: the UDDI cloud level and the agent one. The UDDI cloud level allows web services, which represent providers' business functionalities, to be classified, discovered, selected, and invoked by agents that are applied to the supply chain construction. The agent level contains an agent society that manages the different steps of cooperation and negotiation between the different business entities in a supply chain, as business-to-business and business-to-customer transactions. On the basis of the characteristics of supply chain, a negotiation protocol between agents has been proposed.