ALIVE: an agent-based framework for dynamic and robust service-oriented applications

Service-oriented systems are becoming more and more nodes in a digital, dynamic ecosystem requiring the identification and establishment of flexible, spontaneous collaboration activities between services. This requires new engineering approaches that can integrate new functionalities and behaviours into existing running systems of active, distributed and interdependent processes. Here, we present the approach of the FP7 Alive project to the use of formal models of coordination and organisation mechanisms to deliver a flexible, high-level means to describe the structure of interactions between services in the environment. We propose to build on the current activities in service-oriented engineering by defining three levels: (i) An organisational level models the organisational structure of executing and interlinked services and the context around them. (ii) A coordination level provides flexible ways to model interaction between the services. (iii) These two levels connect with existing (semantic) Web services, which contain semantic descriptions to make components aware of their social context and of the rules of engagement with other services.