A Petri net-based approach for automated goal-driven web service composition

The major factor driving the development of contemporary information services, and in particular Web services, is the need for added value. The creation of a huge variety of complex, value-added, although rarely used services seems a bulky approach, whose efficiency is at least questionable. An excellent alternative is the composition of ready-made, more general and simple services for creation of complex value-added functionality on-demand. However, to be really effective such composition has to be real-time, automatic, reliable, and allow thorough customization of the service functionality with respect to user demands and preferences. In this paper we propose a service composition approach based on a Petri nets modeling technique. The approach facilitates automatic and goal-driven creation of composite Web services.