Selecting and composing web services through iterative reformulation of functional specifications

We propose a specification-driven approach to Web service composition. The proposed framework allows users to start with a high-level, possibly incomplete specification of a desired (goal) service that is to be realized using a subset of the available component services. These services are represented by the system using transition systems augmented with guards over variables with infinite domains and are used to determine a strategy for their composition that would realize the goal service. In the event that the goal service cannot be realized using the available services, the system identifies the cause(s) for such failure which can then be used by the developer to reformulate the goal specification. Thus, the system supports Web service composition through iterative refinement of the functional specifications. We present a prototype implementation in tabled-logic programming environment that illustrates the key features of the proposed approach.