A Model for Network Services on the Web

Service oriented architecture (SOA) is gaining more momentum with the advent of network services on the Web. A programmable and machine accessible Web is the vision of many and might represent a step towards the semantic Web. This paper reflects upon existing Web services implementations and presents an abstract containment model as a basis to model Web services. A common model for Web services helps to compare different implementations in a principled way, introduces a common terminology, and provides a foundation for system designers to build additional functionality (e.g., security, work-flow) on top. Examples are shown on how existing Web services implementations can be represented using this model. Keywords— Web, Web services, model.