An approach towards adaptive service composition in markets of composed services

On-the-fly composition of service-based software solutions is still a challenging task. Even more challenges emerge when facing automatic service composition in markets of composed services for end users. In this paper, we focus on the functional discrepancy between “what a user wants” specified in terms of a request and “what a user gets” when executing a composed service. To meet the challenge of functional discrepancy, we propose the combination of existing symbolic composition approaches with machine learning techniques. We developed a learning recommendation system that expands the capabilities of existing composition algorithms to facilitate adaptivity and consequently reduces functional discrepancy. As a representative of symbolic techniques, an Artificial Intelligence planning based approach produces solutions that are correct with respect to formal specifications. Our learning recommendation system supports the symbolic approach in decision-making. Reinforcement Learning techniques enable the recommendation system to adjust its recommendation strategy over time based on user ratings. We implemented the proposed functionality in terms of a prototypical composition framework. Preliminary results from experiments conducted in the image processing domain illustrate the benefit of combining both complementary techniques.