Service Oriented Computing and Coordination Models

In this paper we briefly describe the challenges related to Serviceoriented computing (SOC). SOC is a novel architectural approach to building complex applications in terms of composition of simple services. A number of challenges arise from the need of coordinating the composed services. We describe approaches based on service orchestration and on service choreography. We also introduce coordination models used in the field of parallel and distributed systems, and we sketch the potential for application of these ideas in SOC. Finally we discuss the problems related to service discovery; i.e. how to find suitable parts for a composition.