Web services is a relatively recent initiative that aims to promote program-toprogram interaction across the Internet, but while web services is based on a set of XML standards, new standards continue to emerge and existing standards to evolve. Also, web services relies on Remote Procedure Call (RPC) for communication and is thus influenced by the semantics of RPC. In this research, we investigated the juxtaposition of RPC with Generative Communications (GC). GC is a communication paradigm where messages exist independently of the sender and receiver and are stored in a network accessible buffer called a "space": this leads to interactions which are inherently decoupled (in time and space). Also, messages are addressed to recipients by their content, rather than by network addresses, opening up the possibility for one-to-many interactions. These aspects are a marked departure from the RPC paradigm and introduce two main implications: 1) GC messages can be intercepted when in-transit between participants thus introducing the opportunity for mediation and 2) GC can be used as the basis for the aggregation of simple services into more complex ensembles. In this research, we explored these possibilities by creating proof-of-concept prototypes in three areas. 1) Mediation - GC based mediation was used to intercede between clients and services to allow a client using one protocol to interact with a service using a different protocol. For example, a GC based client interacting with a SOAP service (leading to backward compatibility). 2) Location services - a location service is a GC based service that performs a similar function to a UDDI registry but can be treated as just another service rather than part of an architecture. 3) Aggregation - a workflow design was used as the basis of an aggregated service using GC as the means by which the aggregation elements interact. We concluded that GC provides a natural platform for mediation, location services and aggregation and that these aspects could be combined to produce a holistic service environment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265537 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Lawrence, Ian Rae |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Ian Rae Lawrence |
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