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A formal framework for service mashups with dynamic service selection

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Abstract

The service mashup programming paradigm is a blooming faction of service oriented Architecture for developing web applications. A mashup application constructs its functionality by combining data, presentation and functionalities obtained from online services published by service providers such as Google and Amazon. This paradigm significantly facilitates the implementation of application and reduces the workload. But it also makes the application rely on the availability and qualities of the online services which beyond its control in which case the robustness of the system requires more concern. This paper proposes a formal model to specify and analyze the behavior and robustness of service mashups under a certain environment where some services may become unavailable. The specification contains both system specification and environment situation. Refinement theory are employed to specify the correctness of dynamic service selection. The framework realizes the service selection by allowing virtual service requests to be handled by any online service having consistent interface and refined functionality. The framework provides a clear definition of the robustness of mashup systems and proposes several rules as well as approaches to preserve the robustness during the development and maintenance of the system.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2012AA011205), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61361136002 and No. 61321064), Shanghai Knowledge Service Platform Project (No. ZF1213) and Shanghai Minhang Talent Project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Institute, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Qin Li & Huibiao Zhu

  2. Department of Computer Science, School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Jianqi Shi

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  1. Qin Li
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  2. Jianqi Shi
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  3. Huibiao Zhu
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Correspondence to Jianqi Shi.

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Li, Q., Shi, J. & Zhu, H. A formal framework for service mashups with dynamic service selection. Innovations Syst Softw Eng 10, 219–234 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-014-0238-y

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