Definition and Execution of Composite Web Services: The SELF-SERV Project

Web services composition is emerging as a promising technology for the effective automation of businessto-business collaborations. It allows organizations to form alliances by connecting their applications, databases, and systems, in order to offer “one-stops shops” for their customers. The SELF-SERV project aims at providing tool support and middleware infrastructure for the definition and execution of composite Web services. A major outcome of the project has been a prototype system in which Web services are declaratively composed, and the resulting composite services can be orchestrated either in a peerto-peer or in a centralized way within a dynamic environment. Work is underway to extend this system in order to enable user-driven composition of Web services, and their execution in a mobile environment.