Current Research in Service-oriented and Grid computing at ICIS/EEE, NTU
Service oriented computing is an emerging paradigm which opens new opportunities for addressing the long-standing issues of system integration and system management in industry and Internet-based collaborations. Our research attempts to capture this new opportunity and strikes to achieve impact with industrial significance.
The specific research topic areas includes: Semantic-enhanced Web services technologies, Dynamic composition of Web services, Self-managed service-oriented environment, and Web platform for collaboration.
The Following research is supported in part by Thematic Strategic Research Program (TSRP) of A*STAR.
1. Towards dynamic integration of collaborative virtual enterprise: a Semantic Web services approach
There is a new paradigm shift in industry that companies increasingly focus on their core competencies and outsource all other functions, formulating a virtual chain of enterprises called a collaborative virtual enterprise. The dynamic integration of systems and services of collaborative virtual enterprise which is derived from the rapidly changing business goals is crucial to its effective operations. In this project, we address the dynamic integration by leveraging and contributing to the emerging Semantic Web services technologies. We investigate the virtualization techniques and methodology for constructing a semantic-enhanced service-oriented environment, in which every thing to be integrated (systems, machines, equipments and devise, or applications) is virtualized as standard-based services annotated with semantics. The business goals when realized through the IT-enabled business processes are dynamically and automatically constructed out of available semantic-enhanced Web services as needed at runtime. The integration is achieved via service composition. The techniques and algorithms that support dynamic discovery, service matching / selection, and service composition will be developed. Furthermore, the techniques for services’ self management are also investigated. This research is supported in part by A*STAR SERC Grant No: P052 0094 (2006—2009) and P052 0104 (2006—2009).
2. Operational Transparent Virtual Grid Community over Service-Oriented Grid
At the core of a successful Grid are the effective community mechanisms for coordinated and collaborative R&D on core technologies. In this project, we investigate the issues, technologies, and mechanisms and tools for supporting effective community formulation, dynamic community operations, and a collaborative community portal as an operational transparent virtual community environment. This research is supported in part by A*STAR SERC Grant No: 052 015 0024 (2005—2007)
3. Development of An Advanced E-Learning Environment In a Grid-Based-E-Learning Environment
Grid and learning technologies are designed to solve different issues in different domains. The research in Grid-based e-learning environment attempts to leverage and unleash the power of Grid technology for providing a new environment for learning and teaching. Our research and approach emphasize and support the learning paradigm shift. A new paradigm which focuses on knowledge construction will replace the current information transfer paradigm which focused on content and on the key authoritative figure of the teacher who provides information. We explore the use of Grid technology to offer more effective and sharable e-learning services and facilitate the personalized learning. This research is supported in part by HP Philanthropy Grant for 2005 HP Adaptive-Enterprise Initiative (2005—2008).
(Written by Yang Zhonghua)