Service trading and mediation in distributed computing systems

The increased availability of global communication infrastructures allows providers and users of various application services to cooperate in nearly unlimited geographic scopes. Problems of heterogeneity and scale have motivated specific standardisation activities for client/server "trading" or service "mediation" components. Motivated by current limitations of the emerging ODP (Open Distributed Processing) trader, this paper argues for a broader concept of general service "mediation" as more appropriate for realistic open distributed environments. The proposed mediation concept addresses some of the heterogeneity and flexibility requirements of open service co-operation by a uniform "Service Interface Description Language" (SIDL). The goal is to support distributed application development for a "Common Open Service Market" (COSM) by facilitating flexible service selection and client/server interaction. The paper also presents basic components of a generalised trading and mediation architecture as well as the status of a prototype implementation.<<ETX>>