Transcript Keynote Talk

Exploiting Semantics of Web
Services in eBusiness
Applications
Asuman Dogac
Middle East Technical University
06531 Ankara Turkey
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RIDE 2004, Boston, March 28, 2004
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Outline

Why do we need the semantics of Web services?

Means of expressing semantics: Ontology and Ontology Description
Languages

Semantic Support Available in UDDI Registries

Semantic Support Available in ebXML Registries

Two approaches to exploiting semantics: Querying and Reasoning

Describing the semantics of Web services in two domains


Healthcare
Tourism Industry
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Why do we need the semantics
of Web services?
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Why do we need Web Service
Semantics?

WSDL only gives the technical specification of the Web services

In order to exploit services in their full potential their properties
must be defined:






The methods of charging and payment
The channels by which the service is requested and
provided
Constraints on temporal and spatial aspects
Availability
Service quality
Security, trust and rights attached to a service
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Why do we need Web Service
Semantics?

To be able to define the
Web service functionality
semantics

To be able to describe
service properties and later
search for services
according to their properties

This search needs to be
done in a machine
processable and
interoperable manner
Asuman Dogac
RIDE 2004, Boston, March 28, 2004
Defining
Service
Properties
Through
Ontology
Languages
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Ontology
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What is an Ontology?
“An explicit formal specification of the terms in the domain and
relations among them.”
- Noy and McGuinness, “Ontology Development 101”
• The word ontology comes from the Greek ontos
(being) and logos (word)
Class
•An ontology describes objects and concepts
as classes
Subclass
• These classes are arranged in a hierarchy,
and then class attributes and relationships are
described with properties
Subclass
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properties
properties
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Why use an ontology?
• A common vocabulary
• Ability to define relationships among classes,
properties and instances
• Automated Processing
1. Querying
2. Reasoning
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Resource Description Framework (RDF)

A W3C recommendation

RDF fixes the syntax and structure of describing
metadata through RDF Syntax

It allows meaning to be defined and associated with
data through RDF Schema

RDF Schema facilities to define domain specific
ontologies
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Ontology Languages and OWL
OIL: Ontology Inference
Layer (European
Commission Project)
DAML:Darpa Agent
Markup Language
DAML+OIL
RDF (Resource
Description
Framework)
OWL: Web Ontology
Language (Being
Standardized by W3C)
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OWL Classes


<owl:Class rdf:ID=“Crimes">
</owl:Class>
Ministry of Interior has
defined ontologies for
their information in OWL
For example:
Crimes
Robbery
<owl:Class rdf:ID=“Robbery">
<rdfs:subClassOf
rdf:resource="#Crimes"/>
</owl:Class>
Asuman Dogac
…
Speeding
Terrorism
<owl:Class rdf:ID=“Terrorism">
<rdfs:subClassOf
rdf:resource="#Crimes"/>
</owl:Class>
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OWL Properties
<owl:DatatypeProperty rdf:ID=“description">
<rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#Crime"/>
<rdfs:range
rdf:resource=“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSche
description
Crimes
Literal
ma#Literal"/>
</owl:DatatypeProperty >
<owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID=“suspect">
<rdfs:domain
rdf:resource="#Robbery"/>
<rdfs:range rdf:resource=“#Thief>
</owl:ObjectProperty >
suspect
Robbery
Thief
driver
<owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID=“driver">
<rdfs:domain
rdf:resource="#Speeding"/>
<rdfs:range rdf:resource=“#Speeder"/>
</owl:ObjectProperty >
Asuman Dogac
Speeding
RIDE 2004, Boston, March 28, 2004
Speeder
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An Example: eGovernment

Finger prints from a robbery
scene identified John Smith as
the suspect

Here is the police report on the
robbery:
<Robbery rdf:ID="report-2003-10-23-xyz">
<description>...</description>
<suspect>
<Thief
rdf:about="http://www.ministryOfInterior.gov/criminals#John_Smith"/
> </suspect>
</Robbery>
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An Example: eGovernment
• Later in the day a police gives a person a
ticket for speeding
• The driver's license showed the name John
Doe
• Here is the police report on the speeder:
<Speeding rdf:ID="report-2003-10-23-abc">
<description>...</description>
<driver>
<Speeder
rdf:about="http://www.ministryOfInterior/criminals#John_Doe"/>
</driver>
</Speeding>
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Any Relationship between the Thief
and the Speeder?
Ministry of Interior keeps the OWL descriptions of their files:
<Criminals rdf:about="
http://www.ministryOfInterior/criminals#John_Doe ">
<owl:sameAs rdf:resource="
http://www.ministryOfInterior.gov/criminals#John_Smith "/>
</Criminals>
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How can this be achieved? owl:sameAs
property helps!
Thief
John Smith
owl:sameAs
Speeder
John Doe
Inference: The Thief and the Speeder are one and
the same!

OWL provides a property (owl:sameAs) for indicating
that two resources (e.g., two people) are the same
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Semantic Support of Web Services in
UDDI Registries
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UDDI Registry APIs

Inquiry API

Find







find_business
find_service
find_binding
find_tModel



Asuman Dogac
Save




Get Details

Publishers API

get_businessDetail
get_serviceDetail
get_bindingDetail
get_tModelDetail
save_business
save_service
save_binding
save_tModel
Delete




delete_business
delete_service
delete_binding
delete_tModel
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Defining Service Semantics in UDDI
Registries
businessEntity


By using standard
taxonomies
And by putting the
corresponding
tModel keys in the
category bags of
services
Asuman Dogac
businessKey
name
URL
description
contacts
businessServices
identifierBag
categoryBag
keyedReference
keyedReference
tModelKey
tModelKey
keyName
keyName
keyValue
keyValue
RIDE 2004, Boston, March 28, 2004
Contact
Contact
Phone
Phone
Address
Address
Email
Email
businessService
businessService
serviceKey
Key
tModelKey
Name
Name
Description
Description
BindingTemplates
BindingTemplates
keyedReference
keyedReference
tModelKey
tModelKey
keyName
keyName
keyValue
keyValue
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Business categories in UDDI

Three standard taxonomies in V1

Industry: NAICS - North American Industrial
Classification Scheme (Industry codes - US Govt.)

Product/Services: UN/SPSC - Universal Standard
Products and Services Classification (ECMA)

Location: ISO 3166 Geographical taxonomy
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ISO 3166 Codes (Countries)
(http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/)
Country
A2
A3
Number
ITALY
IT
ITA
380
TURKEY
TR
TUR
792
…
…
…
…
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North American Industry Classification
System (NAICS)
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United Nations Standard Products &
Services Code® (UNSPSC)
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How can we find a service through its
semantics in UDDI Registries?

Looking for a service to buy a Computer




If a service puts the tModel key corresponding to
[43.17.18.03] Workstations or desktop computers –
commodity in its category bag
THEN
We know that this service is related with computers
BUT: Is this service really selling computers? If so how
about the properties of the product? Payment
method? Memory, Speed?
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Taxonomies Define Only Class/Subclass
Relationship: An Example Taxonomy: UNSPSC
• UDDI uses
taxonomies to describe
the semantic of Web
services by relating them
to tModels
43.00.00.00.00
Communications and Computer
Equipment and Peripherals and
Components and Supplies
Through taxonomies:
• It is not possible to define
properties of services
43.16.17.00.00
Business Transaction and Personal
Business Software
• It is not possible to relate
service classes with one
another
43.16.17.02.00
Tax Preparation Software
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Semantic Support of Web Services in
ebXML Registries
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Where to store the generic semantics of
the services?

An ebXML registry allows to define semantics
basically through two mechanisms:


It allows properties of registry objects to be
defined through “slots” and,
Metadata can be stored in the registry through a
“classification” mechanism
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ebXML Registry Information Model
(RIM)
RegistryObject
ClassificationNode
ClassificationScheme
Asuman Dogac
Classification
RegistryEntry
RegistryPackage
Association
ExtrinsicObject
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Service
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Exploiting semantics
TravelService
Transportation Accommodation Entertainment
Service
Service
Service
AirTransportation

In relating the semantics
ReserveAFlight
BuyATicket
with the services advertised
in service registries, there
originatingFrom destinationTo paymentMethod
are two key issues:
 Where to store the
generic semantics of the
ReserveAFlight
services: In ebXML,
metadata is stored in
the registry
originatingFrom destinationTo paymentMethod
 How to relate the services
advertised in the registry
with the semantic defined
through an ontology: In
MyService
ebXML through
Classification objects
?
?
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Relating a Web service Advertised
with Service Ontology in ebXML
ServiceToIndustryClassification:
Classification
classificationNode
classsifiedObject
MyService:
Registry Entry
Asuman Dogac
ReserveAFlight:
ClassificationNode
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How to relate services advertised with
the generic ontology classes?

By relating a service advertised with a node in classification
hierarchy, we make the service an explicit member of this node

The service also inherits the well-defined meaning associated
with this node as well as the generic properties defined for this
node


When we associate “MyService” with “ReserveAFlightService”,
its meaning becomes clear; that this service is a flight
reservation service
Assuming that the “ReserveAFlightService” service has the
generic properties such as “originatingFrom”, “destinationTo”
and “paymentMethod”, “MyService” also inherits these
properties
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Querying vs. Reasoning
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Some Observations

Ontologies can play two major roles in the Web
services area:

One is to provide a source of shared and precisely
defined terms which can be used to dynamically
discover, compose and monitor services

The other is to reason about the ontologies
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Some Observations

The fact is that we do not have industrial strength
reasoners yet!

Semantic can also be taken advantage of through
querying
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Exploiting Semantics through Querying

Once semantics is associated with Web services in
ebXML registries, it can be used to discover
services simply through queries

Examples:

It is possible to find the properties of a Web service class

It is possible to find all the advertised instances of a Web
service class in the ontology

It is possible to obtain the content files (WSDL and OWL)
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Querying ebXML Registry through Query
Templates

This can be achieved through predefined query
templates which yields into automation:

A query template is used to obtain the properties of a
generic class

A query template is used for locating service instances of a
given generic class node in the class hierarchy

A template is a content retrieval query to obtain the original
OWL and WSDL files through the identifiers of the OWL
and WSDL files in the SpecificationLinks
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A query template to obtain the properties of a generic class
ebXML Registry
TravelService
DatatypeProperty
Transportation Accommodation Entertainment
Service
Service
Service
AirTransportation
ReserveAFlight
originatingFrom destinationTo
ebXML Query
Get Datatype Properties
ebXML Query Result
ObjectProperty
BuyATicket
paymentMethod
1
1
2
2
ebXML Query
Get Object Properties
ebXML Query Result
paymentMethod
originatingFrom
destinationTo
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promotion
promotion
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An Example Query Retrieving all the Associations of Type
“DatatypeProperty” for “ReserveAClassFlightService”
<AdhocQueryRequest xmlns =
"urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:query:xsd:2.0" xmlns:xsi =
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation =
"urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:query:xsd:2.0 query.xsd">
<ResponseOption returnType = "LeafClass" returnComposedObjects = "true" />
<FilterQuery> <ClassificationNodeQuery> <SourceAssociationBranch>
<AssociationFilter> <Clause>
<SimpleClause leftArgument = "associationType">
<StringClause stringPredicate = "Equal">
DatatypeProperty</StringClause>
</SimpleClause> </Clause>
</AssociationFilter>
<ClassificationNodeQuery> <NameBranch>
<LocalizedStringFilter> <Clause> <SimpleClause leftArgument = "value">
<StringClause stringPredicate = "Contains">
ReserveAFlightService</StringClause>
</SimpleClause> </Clause> </LocalizedStringFilter> </NameBranch>
</ClassificationNodeQuery> </SourceAssociationBranch>
</ClassificationNodeQuery> </FilterQuery> </AdhocQueryRequest>
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A query template to find all the advertised instances of a Web
service class
ebXML Registry
TravelService
Accommodation Entertainment
Service
Service
Transportation
Service
AirTransportation
ReserveAFlight
MyService1
BuyATicket
MyService2
1
2
MyService3
ebXML Query
Get Extension of a
ClassificationNode
ebXML Query Result
MyService1
MyService3
MyService2
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An Example Query: Retrieving all the Services Classified
with “ReserveAFlightService” ClassificationNode
<AdhocQueryRequest
xmlns = "urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:query:xsd:2.0"
xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation = "urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:query:xsd: 2.0 query.xsd">
<ResponseOption returnType = "LeafClass" returnComposedObjects = "true" />
<FilterQuery> <ServiceQuery> <ClassifiedByBranch>
<ClassificationNodeQuery>
<NameBranch>
<LocalizedStringFilter>
<Clause>
<SimpleClause leftArgument = "value">
<StringClause stringPredicate = "Equal"> ReserveAFlightService
</StringClause>
</SimpleClause> </Clause> </LocalizedStringFilter> </NameBranch>
</ClassificationNodeQuery> </ClassifiedByBranch> </ServiceQuery>
</FilterQuery>
</AdhocQueryRequest>
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ebXML Registry
ebXML Repository
TravelService
Transportation
Service
Accommodation
Service
WSDL of
MyService1
Entertainment
Service
AirTransportation
ReserveAFlight
Extrinsic
Object
BuyATicket
SpecificationLink
MyService1
1
2
Extrinsic
Object
ebXML Query
Get SpecificationLink
Content of a Service
A Content Retrieval
Query template
ebXML Query Result
WSDL of
MyService1
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OWL-S of
MyService1
OWL-S of
MyService1
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Retrieving the WSDL Files
<GetContentRequest
xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:query:xsd:2.1"
xmlns:rim="urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:rim:xsd:2.1"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:rim:xsd:2.1
../schema/rim.xsd urn:oasis:names:tc:ebxml-regrep:query:xsd:2.1
../schema/query.xsd">
<rim:ObjectRefList>
<--! The unique id of the WSDL file in the registry -->
<rim:ObjectRef
id="urn:uuid:7e4397db-916a-490f-bdc7-c9da"/>
</rim:ObjectRefList>
</GetContentRequest>
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OWL-S
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OWL-S: Defines an Upper Ontology for
Web Services in OWL
Resource
ServiceProfile
presents: What it
does
provides
Service
ServiceGrounding
Supports:
How to access it
Asuman Dogac
describedBy:How it
works
ServiceModel
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Web services and the
Healthcare Domain
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Challenges of Healthcare Informatics

According to Jonathan Borden, M.D. of ASTM:






A disaster: 1.1 Trillion $/year in the USA
30-40 % overhead
Mostly paper based
Highly proprietary commercial systems
Tens of thousands of people die each year due to poor
information/errors
Most of the information is rendered useless
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Challenges of Healthcare Informatics

Most of the health information systems today are
proprietary

They often only serve one specific department within a
healthcare institute

To complicate the matters worse, a patient's health
information may be spread out over a number of different
institutes which do not interoperate

This makes it very difficult for clinicians to capture a
complete clinical history of a patient
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Patient Records: Problems

Content: too little, too much, or wrong

Format: poor organization of information

Access, availability, security

Linkages and integration
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Challenges of Healthcare Informatics
The systems must interoperate for effectiveness
For interoperability standards are needed
However there are more than one standard in the
health care domain
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EHR Architectures
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to
choose from.
Andrew Tanenbaum, Introduction to Computer Networks

„Candidates“ of EHR architectures:







CEN ENV 13606 „EHR Communication“
Good Electronic Health Record (GEHR)
OpenEHR
CEN EN 13606 (draft)
HL7 Clinical Document Architecture
HL7 v2 Information Model (implicit)
HL7 v3 Reference Information Model (draft)
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Web Services in the Healthcare
Domain

Web services provides the healthcare industry with an ideal
platform to achieve the difficult interoperability problems

Web services are designed to wrap and expose existing
resources and provide interoperability among diverse
applications

It becomes possible to provide the interoperability of medical
information systems through standardizing the access to data
through WSDL and SOAP rather than standardizing
documentation of electronic health records
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Introducing Web services to the healthcare
domain brings many advantages

Medical information systems suffer from proliferation of
standards to represent the same data; Web services allow
for seamless integration of disparate applications
representing different and, at times, competing
standards

Web services will extend the healthcare enterprises by
making their own services available to others

Web services will extend the life of the existing software
by exposing previously proprietary functions as Web
services
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Semantics of Web Services

In order to exploit Web services to their full potential, it is
necessary to describe their semantics

An essential element in defining the semantic of Web
services is the domain knowledge

Medicine is one of the few domains to have extensive
domain knowledge defined through standards
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Domain Knowledge


Some of the domain knowledge exists in controlled
vocabularies, or terminologies:
 Some vocabularies are rich semantic nets, such as SNOMED-CT
while others such as ICD-10 (International Statistical
Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems) is
little more than lexicons of terms
 However, there are also standards that expose the business
logic in the healthcare domain such as HL7 and Electronic
Healthcare Record based standards such as CEN TC251, ISO
TC215 and GEHR which define and classify clinical concepts
These standards offer significant value in developing
ontologies to express the semantics of Web services
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What kind of Semantics?


Service Functionality Semantics:
 HL7 has categorized the events in healthcare domain by
considering service functionality which reflects the business logic
in this domain
 This classification can be used as a basis for defining the service
action semantics through a Service Functionality Ontology
Service Message Semantics:
 Electronic healthcare record (EHR) based standards like HL7
CDA (Clinical Document Architecture), GOM (GEHR Object
Model), and CEN TC251's ENV 13606 define meaningful
components of EHR so that when transferred, the receiving
party can understand the record content better
 The meaningful components defined by these standards can
be used in developing service message ontologies
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HL7 and Web Services

The primary goal of HL7 is to provide standards for the exchange
of data among healthcare computer applications

An event in the healthcare world, called the trigger event, causes
exchange of messages between a pair of applications

When an event occurs in an HL7 compliant system, an HL7
message is prepared by collecting the necessary data from the
underlying systems and it is passed to the requestor, usually as
an EDI message

Mapping HL7’s message based events directly into Web services
may result in several inefficiencies
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HL7 and Web Services





The input and output messages defined for HL7 events are
usually very complex containing innumerous segments of
different types and optionality
Furthermore, all the semantics about the business logic and
the document structure are hard coded in the message
This implies that, the party invoking the Web service must be
HL7 compliant to make any sense of the content of the output
parameter(s) returned by the service
Furthermore, the information contained in an HL7 message may
be coming from different systems either proprietary or
complying to different standards
Hence, in Web services terminology, HL7 events correspond to
Composite services, whereas more elementary services are
needed
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HL7 and Web Services

Since HL7 has already been through an effort
of categorizing the events in healthcare
domain considering service functionality, it
can be used as a basis for a service
functionality ontology
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An Example Service Functionality
Ontology
HealthCareServices
PatientAdministration
PatientCare
PatientReferralRequest
PatientReferral
Scheduling
PatientInfoRequest
InsuranceInformation
ClinicalInformation
ObservationReporting
CancelPatientReferral
DemographicData
GetClinicalInformation
serviceQuality
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location
RIDE 2004, Boston, March 28, 2004
Properties of the
Generic Service
Class
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Service Messages





A Web service in the healthcare domain usually accesses or
updates a part of an electronic healthcare record, that is,
parts of the EHR constitute the service parameters
An electronic healthcare record may get very complex with data
coming from diverse systems such as lab tests, diagnosis,
prescription of drugs which may be in different formats
Electronic healthcare record (EHR) based standards like HL7
CDA, GOM and CEN's ENV 13606 aim to facilitate the
interoperability between Medical Information Systems
These standards provide conceptual building blocks or
meaningful components
We propose to use these standards as a basis for Service
Message Ontology
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GEHR





EHR and Transaction level
Navigation level
Content (e.g. observation, subjective,
instruction) level
Data types (e.g. quantity, multimedia) level
Clinical models are expressed outside the
GOM in the form of archetypes
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CEN TC 251 ENV 13606

Folder: High-level subdivisions of the entire EHR for a patient

Composition: A set of record entries relating to one time and
place of care delivery; grouped contributions to an aspect of
health care activity; composed reports and overviews of clinical
progress

Headed Section: Sub-divisions used to group entries with a
common theme or derived through a common healthcare
process.

Cluster: Low-level aggregations of elementary entries (Record
Items) to represent a compound clinical concept
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An example Service Message
Ontology
Concept
Property
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Relating the services with the
semantic defined through an ontology - UDDI
UDDI Business Entities and Related
HacettepeHospital
UDDI tModels
ObservationReportingServices
Medical Services
.
.
.
PatientCare
PatientReferral
PatientReferralServices
GetClinicalInfo
getClinicalInfo
Observation
Reporting
PatientReferralReq
CategoryBag reference
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Associating semantics to ebXML
HealthCareServices
subclassOf
subclassOf
PatientCare
PatientAdministration
ObservationReporting
subclassOf
PatientReferralRequest
subclassOf
PatientInfoRequest
Standards
Conformed
serviceQuality
ebXML Classification
Hierarchy
ebXML
ClassificationNodes
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ebXML
associations
ebXMLslots
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The healthcare informatics industry has
already started using Web services

An Example: Integrating the Healthcare
Enterprise (IHE)

IHE defines a Web service based
implementation framework
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Overview of IHE IT Infrastructure
Integration Profiles
IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Committee
Charles Parisot, GE Medical Systems Information Technologies
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IHE IT Infrastructure
5 Integration Profiles
Retrieve Information
for Display
Access a patient’s clinical
information and documents in a
format ready to be presented
to the requesting user
Patient Synchronized
Applications
Synchronize multiple applications
on a desktop to the same patient
Patient Identifier
Cross-referencing
for MPI
Consistent
Time
Map patient identifiers
across independent
identification domains
Coordinate time
across networked
systems
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Enterprise User
Authentication
RIDE 2004, Boston, March 28, 2004
Provide users a single
name
and
centralized
authentication process
across all systems
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An Example: Retrieve Information for Display
Key Technical Properties:
 Standards Used:
 Web Services (WSDL for HTTP Get).
 General purpose IT Presentation Formats: XHTML, PDF,
JPEG plus CDA L1.
 Client may be off-the-shelf browser or display app.
 Two services :
 Retrieve of Specific Information:




Patient centric: patient ID
Type of Request
Date, Time, nMostRecent
Retrieve a Document



Asuman Dogac
Object Unique Instance Identifier (OID)
Type of Request
Content Type Expected
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Retrieve Information for Display
Transaction Diagram
Display
Retrieve Specific Info for Display [11]
Information
Source
Retrieve Document for Display [12]
Types of
Requests
Summary of All Reports
Summary of Laboratory Reports
Summary of Radiology Reports
Summary of Cardiology Reports
Summary of Surgery Reports
Summary of Intensive Care Reports
Summary of Emergency Reports
Summary of Discharge Reports
List of Allergies
List of Medications
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Persistent Document
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For Further Information…

IST-1-002103-STP Artemis Project: A
Semantic Web Service-based P2P
Infrastructure for the Interoperability of
Medical Information Systems

http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/artemis/
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Web Services and the Travel
Industry
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Overall Information Flow in
Tourism Domain About 1000 companies
About
100,000
Hotels
Hotels
Hilton Ankara,
Sofitel Paris ...
4 major GDSs+
Hundreds Airline Companies
10 small
Olympic, Air France …
Of
Chains
XML
Two companies
Hotel
Switching
Chains
Companies
Hilton, BW,
GDS
Cryptic
Pegasus,
Utell, E-Rez,
…
Tens of
Thousands
Of agencies
Rent-a-Car
Agencies
Asuman Dogac
Worldres.
Rent-a-Car Hundreds
Chains
Of
Avis, Hertz, … Chains
Amadeus,
Galileo,
Sabre,
Worldspan
…
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E-Comm.
Site
Travel
Agency
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Global Distribution Systems (GDS)

Provides connection to the airline, hotel and
rent-a-car reservation systems from a single point

Leading GDSs: Amadeus, Sabre, Galileo, Worldspan

Travel Agency – GDS Connectivity


Usually in the form of dedicated client terminals that accept
GDS specific cryptic commands, connected to the GDS on a
private network
Special APIs provided for Client Application Developers
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Disadvantages of GDSs (I)

But GDSs suffer from:






Mostly they rely on their own private networks
They have difficult to use cryptic languages
Mainly for human use
A request to the system usually involves more than one
interaction with the person on the terminal
GDSs have limited speed and search capabilities
It is difficult to interoperate them with other systems and
data sources
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Challenges of Travel Industry (II)

GDSs are legacy systems and suffer from:




Classical problems with centralized architectures
Among the millions of travel agents, only about 10 to 20%
of all travel agents are in connection with the GDS
companies
Weak support for SMEs (major hotel chains and etc..)
Do not support every type of services
in travel industry (no support for tours)
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A Web service based architecture can
bring several advantages to the industry







Opening up the resources over the Internet
Interoperability
Ability to access legacy systems
Better support for SMEs
Ease in service discovery
Machine processing
Better accessibility
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Web Services in Travel Industry

A few early adopters in the travel industry have started developing
Web Services
Sabre and

Datalex are among
the first companies to develop OTA based Web services

Sabre Web Services provide all the functionality needed to sell
travel

Galileo also provides a Web service based solution and claims
to have cut down the development time by 80%
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New Business Opportunities through Web
Services in the Travel Domain (I)

GDS companies support only major travel products;



Airline ticketing,
Hotel reservation and
Car rental

Through Web services other types of specialized
services can be made available

Especially different types of tour and transportation
based travel products can be advertised and
accessed
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New Business Opportunities through Web
Services in the Travel Domain (II)

Among the millions of travel agents, only about 10 to
20% of all travel agents are in connection with the
GDS companies

Most travel agencies and travel organization
companies choose to manage travel services by
themselves, due to reasons which may be



Technical, or
Economical
These companies generally suffer from the lack of
advertising their services as well as publishing them
electronically
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New Business Opportunities through Web
Services in the Travel Domain (III)

Web services technology will provide a solution for
all companies, especially for small-to-medium
enterprises in the travel industry

The travel agencies and service providers will
collaborate with each other on a new level

The companies will be able to provide every type of
travel service; the service alternatives will be found
on the fly
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Service Semantics in Travel
Domain

Generic service semantics can be defined through
DAML-S (later OWL-S) upper ontology

However some other properties of the services
depend on the application domain

To facilitate the discovery of the Web services, there
is a need for an ontology to describe service
functionality in the domain
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Ontology Efforts in the Travel Domain

There are some efforts in this direction

There have been some efforts in defining the message
ontologies in the travel domain such as the Harmonise
project http://www.harmonise.org/

The Harmonise project have defined the
Interoperability Minimum Harmonization Ontology
(IMHO)
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Open Travel Alliance (OTA)

OTA exposes considerable amount of
domain knowledge which can offer
significant value in describing the
semantics of travel Web services:











Generic messages
Air messages
Car message
Hotel messages
Golf Tee Times
Insurance messages
Package Tours/Holiday Bookings
Travel Itinerary messages
Rail information messages
Loyalty messages
Profile messages
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Service Functionality Ontology
First Level
TravelWebServices
VehicleServices HotelServices RailServices
..........
.........
AirServices InsuranceServices .........
AirDetailsServices
..........
AirBookingServices
AirScheduleServices
CheckingAvailabilityServices
RequestAirAvail ResponseAirAvail
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The advantages of Service
Functionality Ontology

All sorts of Web services can be
classified by using the nodes of such an
ontology to make their meaning clear

Web service instance discovery is
facilitated: All the services classified
through a node in the ontology can be
retrieved from service registries
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Message Ontologies

There is a need for message ontologies

It is also necessary to define the semantics of the
messages exchanged so that the party receiving the
message can interpret it

When ontologies are used to describe the
messages, since the messages can refer to
ontology concepts, it becomes possible to map one
message instance into another through ontology
mapping although they may be defined through
different ontologies
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For Further Information…

IST-1-002104-STP Satine Project:
Semantic-based Interoperability
Infrastructure for Integrating Web
Service Platforms to Peer-to-Peer
Networks

http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/satine/
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Conclusions…

Semantic information about Web services can be
made use of both


through querying the service registries and
through reasoners running over ontologies

Needless to say reasoning produces new
information and hence is more powerful

But given that we do not have industrial strenth
reasoners yet; through querying the we can get very
useful semantics on Web services
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Conclusions…

The semantic efforts on the Web services area need
to focus on application domains

Semantics is domain specific knowledge

Also different domains have evolved differently;
and they have different needs

Web service technology can improve the
interoperability and can introduce new business
models in these domains
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Thank you for your attention!
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