Agents and OWL-S

Abstract

Although Semantic Web Services have recently received a great deal of attention, the use of semantics to describe distributed cooperating components is not new. Multi-Agent Systems have long addressed the problems of coordinating heterogeneous, autonomous components so that they can collaborate and achieve joint goals. Several MAS use semantic descriptions to achieve a shared understanding of communications (both the purpose of the communication, and the contents of the communication); however these solutions typically enable only a modest number of disparate MAS to collaborate. With current advances in the Semantic Web, and Semantic Web Services, it may be possible to relax these constraints.

The DARPA Agent Markup Language for Services (DAML-S) was proposed as a solution to discovering and automating the composition of services. Two years on (and a name change to OWL-S), it has gained widespread interest; yet is viewed as a Web Services proposal augmented through semantics, rather than a markup language for Agents. This paper presents an agent-oriented perspective of OWL-S, including an alternative set of usage metaphors. The emerging problems for agent-based adoption are discussed, as well as potential solutions that address this divergence.