[Position Paper] WS-ECA: An ECA Rule Description Language for Ubiquitous Services Computing

Ubiquitous computing network comprises a variety of distributed service devices. Today Web services technology enables the heterogeneous devices to provide their own services and interact with each other via well-defined Internet protocol. Nevertheless, service devices in ubiquitous environments require more eventdriven, autonomous interaction beyond rather passive serviceoriented architecture of the present time. This paper presents an ECA (Event-Condition-Action) rule description language in an attempt to support capability for autonomous interactions among service-oriented devices in ubiquitous computing network. Specifically, the proposed WS-ECA is an XML-based ECA rule description language for web service-enabled devices. The rules are embedded in distributed devices which invoke appropriate services in the network if the rules are triggered by some internal or external events. The presented ECA-based device coordination approach is expected to facilitate seamless inter-operation among the web service-enabled devices in the emerging ubiquitous computing environment.