Measuring Granularity of Web Services with Semantic Annotation

Abstract

Web services technology has been one of the mainstream technologies for software development since Web services can be reused and composed into new applications or used to integrate software systems. Granularity or size of a service refers to the functional scope or the amount of detail associated with service design and it has an impact on the ability to reuse or compose the service in different contexts. Designing a service with the right granularity is a challenging issue for service designers and mostly relies on designers’ judgment. This paper presents a granularity measurement model for a Web service with semantics-annotated WSDL. The model supports different types of service design granularity, and semantic annotation helps with the analysis of the functional scope and amount of detail associated with the service. Based on granularity measurement, we then develop a measurement model for service reusability and composability. The measurements can assist in service design and the development of service-based applications.