Discovery in Grid and Web Services Environments: A Survey and Evaluation

Abstract

An important step in realizing the vision of both Web services and Grid is the provision of a robust, automatic and reliable solution for finding services or resources in such environments. Different solutions to this problem were already proposed, each with its specific model and realization. Although all solutions address the same problem, it is very difficult for a non-expert and even for an expert in the field to decide if one solution is better then another and why. This paper proposes a systematic set of criteria, a framework, that can help in the evaluation of different discovery approaches. Furthermore some of the most relevant discovery approaches in Web services and Grid environments are surveyed and evaluated according to the proposed evaluation framework.