The MAIS Approach to Web Service Design

This chapter presents a first attempt to realize a methodological framework supporting the most relevant phases of the design of a value-added service. A value-added service is defined as a functionality of an adaptive and multichannel information system obtained by composing services offered by different providers. The framework has been developed as part of the multichannel adaptive information systems (MAIS) project. The MAIS framework focuses on the following phases of service life cycle: requirements analysis, design, deployment, and run-time use and negotiation. In the first phase, the designer elicits, validates, and negotiates service requirements according to social and business goals. The design phase is in charge of modeling services with an enhanced version of UML, augmented with new features developed within the MAIS project. The deployment phase considers the network infrastructure and, in particular, provides an approach to implement and coordinate the execution of services from different providers. In the run-time use and negotiation phase, the MAIS methodology provides support to the optimal selection and quality renegotiation of services and to the dynamic evaluation of management costs. The chapter describes the MAIS methodological tools available for different phases of service life cycle and discusses the main guidelines driving the implementation of a service management architecture called reflective architecture that complies with the MAIS methodological approach.