CLOSE
PRINT
SNRC Industry Seminar Series Tuesday, 6 April,2004 4:15 PM
ABSTRACT
Despite the great interest and the enormous potential, Web services, and more in general service-oriented architectures (SOAs), are still in their infancy. The speed at which software vendors have released middleware and development tools for Web services is unprecedented, but their level of maturity is still far from their counterparts in conventional middleware. This is only natural and common to any novel technology, and will be corrected over time, as more users adopt this technology and provide feedback on what the actual needs are.
Despite the young age, there are a few significant trends that are emerging in terms of middleware support for Web services. In particular, the interesting aspect of Web services is that they have characteristics that differ from services in conventional middleware, and that can take service development and management tools to a new dimension.
One of the key differences is the conversational nature of Web services and the consequent need for extending "traditional", IDL-like interface specifications with the indication of the business protocols that a service supports. In this talk we will examine the motivation and needs for business protocols in Web services and the benefits that providing such specifications can offer in terms of automated development and runtime support. We will also describe the different possible protocol models, along with their advantages and limitations.
Another significant aspect of Web services and of the research in this field is the significant interest in service composition technologies. Service composition is the dual aspect of protocols: protocols refer to the external specifications, while composition refers to the internal implementation of a service, achieved by composing other services. In the talk we will elaborate on composition technologies in Web services, discussing why they are applicable in spite of earlier failures in conventional middleware (workflows), what is the benefit they provide, and what is their relationship with business protocols.
The combination of conversational and compositional aspects in Web services is one of the key aspects that will enable an evolutionary technology (such as that of Web services) to bring revolutionary changes in terms of application development, deployment, and management.
BIOGRAPHY
Fabio Casati is a senior researcher at HP Labs, Palo Alto. He got his PhD from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in 1999. His research interests include business processes, web services, and business-driven application management. He has led the development of several applications in this space and he is author of more than 50 papers in international conferences and journals. Fabio has also served as officer in many conferences.