Utilizing Web Services in an Agent Based Transaction Model (ABT)

Web services have become the new wave of internet technology development. More and more enterprises have ventured into this area staking a claim in their future. However, there remains a great challenge to perform transactions in the loosely coupled Web services environment. The ACID properties in traditional transaction models cannot be guaranteed due to unreliable communication, uncertain duration and lack of central management. To address these issues, we propose an agent based transactional model (ABT) by orchestrating multiple Web services. We recognize that in a complex software system the dynamic multiple Web services bear many similarities to Multiple Agent system. By integrating agent technology into Web services, we implemented our transaction model into an online booking system. We assert that using agent technology to manage and orchestrate transactions is the right choice in Web services environment.