Context Coupling Techniques for Context-aware Web Service Systems: An Overview

Abstract

Distributed services in a context-aware Web service system or in a service composition need to couple context information from different sources in order to be able to interpret context information. Such interpretation is a prerequisite before services can adapt themselves to be context-aware. However, context coupling in contextaware Web service systems is a complex issue. It is related not only to how we represent and transfer context information among Web services, but also to how we support the context storage, and how we ensure security and privacy issues of context information. Context coupling techniques for Web service systems will be different from that of tightly coupled systems because, with Web service systems, context information is typically shared across the boundaries of organizations which host Web services. This chapter aims at presenting an overview of context coupling techniques, their related issues, and their implication for a context-aware Web service system. Our approach is to study existing techniques implemented in current systems, to present open context coupling issues in current and future context-aware Web service systems, and to suggest further research directions.