Formalizing Data-Centric Web Services

This book presents a methodology to model and specify the data aspect of Web services, as it is overlooked by current standards for specifying Web services. The formal specification enables verification of service behavior, and the proposed methodology is based on formal methods and design-by-contract techniques.

The Web has evolved from an information sharing medium to a wide-scale environment for sharing capabilities or services. Currently, URLs not only point to documents and images, but are also used to invoke services that potentially change the state of the Web. Major online organizations today, such as Amazon, PayPal and FedEx, provide services for users and consumers. They also allow third-party vendors to resell their services. In both cases, this requires precise and complete specification of service offerings. Several online discussions demonstrate the challenges faced by these organizations and others while describing their data-centric Web services. These challenges surrounding data specification can lead consumers to use a service erroneously. Case studies demonstrate how formal methods, and specifically design-by-contract techniques, can be leveraged to address the lack of formal specification of data when it comes to developing Web applications such as Amazon and PayPal.

Presents an interdisciplinary approach towards solving practical problems with Web services by applying formal design-by-contract techniques Illustrates how formal methods can be applied in real-life settings to solve current challenges with developing Web applications Demonstrates via case studies how formal methods, and specifically design-by-contract techniques, can be leveraged to address the lack of formal specification of data when it comes to developing Web applications such as Amazon and PayPal

Inhalt
Introduction.- Background.- Literature Review.- Modeling and Specification of a Data-Centric Web Service.- Specification and Verification of a Composition of Services.- Specification and Verification of Transactional Web Service Composition.- Model Implementation.- Evaluation Using a Deep Web Case Study.- Static Detection of Implementation Errors Using Code Contracts.- Static Detection of Implementation Errors in Data-Centric Web Services.- Design-by-Contract for Web Services.- Summary and Conclusions. <p