Scenario: Discovery II and Simple Composition
Contents |
Scenario: Discovery II and Simple Composition
Scope:
In this scenario we assume a customer that wants to buy a computer (i.e. an Apple Macbook) and has fairly clear requirements on the product to buy. Given such a request the task is to find the most appropriate offer from the list of published services and to automatically invoke the most suitable service(s) to purchase the chosen products.
The scenario involves three main sources of difficulties.
- Currently the available services offer 19 products alltogether which are identified by a global product id (GTIN). Clearly more realistic services offer way more different products. It may or may not be feasible to specify all different options and all the product details in the offer description(s). Solutions to the scenario should indicate how they attempt to address this issue in more realistic scenarios with hundreds of products available.
It is planned to have another level/scenario with services that make a realistic number of products available! - Some requests contain competing preferences as is usual for realistic matchmaking: price should be as low as possible, processor power, hard disk drive and RAM should be as much/big as possible. The scenario definition will clearly define rankings. The semantic task is to represent these ranking rules clearly and execute them.
- There are three types of service composition contained in the requests:
- Uncorrelated composition: The requests contains several products that may or may not need to be purchased from different providers.
- Correlated composition: The requests contains several products that may or may not need to be purchased from different providers plus not all pairs of products are suitable and compatible to each others.
- Composition with global optimization goal: The requests contains several products that may or may not need to be purchased from different providers plus there are global optimization goals and constraints. A power minimum or a price maximum are examples of constraints that should not be violated. Within this solution space, if it is specified that as long as functional requirements are met, then the cheapest price is best, then that defines an equivalence class of best solutions.
All services allow ordering single products only. No service provides packages (e.g. offer a notebook with a compatible docking station).
Future possible extensions:
- More sophisticated discovery goals
- Integration with shipping service discovery
- Comparison of offers that publish a price in US-Dollars with requests that specify a price limit in Euros
- Realistic number of offered products
Service Offer
Note that the GTIN provides a (fictious) global unique product identifier!
| Product name | Mac Book 13” | Mac Book 13” | HP NX6325 | IBM X41 | iSight | Creative NX Ultra Web cam | HP-Docking Station |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Notebook | Notebook | Notebook | Notebook | Web_cam | Web_cam | Docking_station |
| Product specs | 13” flat screen 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo Memory : 512 MB DDR2 – SO-DIMM HDD : 60 GB color : white |
13” flat screen 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Memory : 1 GB DDR2– SO-DIMM HDD: 100GB color : black |
15,0" / XGA (1024 x 768) Pixel AMD Turion 64 X2, 1600 MHz 512 MB DDR2-RAM 80 GB HDD Double Layer DVD+/-RW/DVD-ROM ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 Ethernet 10/100/1000B-TX 56K Modem WLAN 802.11a WLAN 802.11b WLAN 802.11g Bluetooth Windows XP Professional |
12,1" XGA TFT Intel Pentium M 758 1,5 GHz 1 GB DDR2-SDRAM 40 GB HDD DVD/ CD-RW 56K V.92 Modem Integrated Intel PRO 1000 Gigabit Ethernet IBM 11b/g Wireless |
VGA 640 x 480 | No specification | for NX9XXXX series (00000009, 00000007) |
| GTIN | 00000001 | 00000002 | 00000005 | 00000008 | 00000011 | 00000014 | 00000017 |
| Price | $ 1,099.00 | $ 1,699.00 | $ 1,057.00 | $ 1,999.99 | $ 149,00 | $ 82,99 | $ 239,00 |
| Product name | Mac Book 13” | HP NX6310 | HP NX9000 | Logitech QuickCam Express | Incase Neoprene Sleeve 13” | IBM- Dockingstation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Notebook | Notebook | Notebook | Web_cam | Accessory | Docking_station |
| Product specs | 13” flat screen 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Memory : 512 MB DDR2– SO-DIMM HDD : 80 GB color : white |
15" TFT Intel Duo T2300+ 1.66GHz Centrino 512MB DDR-RAM 60GB HDD DVD Burner Wlan Windows XP |
15" TFT XGA Pentium4-M 2.2 GHz Memory : 256 MB DDR-RAM HDD: 40 GB CD-RW / DVD-ROM Modem EtherNet (10MBit), Fast EtherNet (100MBit) WLAN 802.11g Windows XP Professional |
VGA 352 x 288 | Neoprene sleeve | for X41 (00000008) |
| GTIN | 00000003 | 00000006 | 00000009 | 00000012 | 00000015 | 00000018 |
| Price | $ 1,349.00 | $ 905.99 | $ 857.00 | $ 23,90 | $ 29,95 | $ 199,00 |
| Product name | Mac Book 13” | HP NX9420 | Mac Book 13” | Airport Extreme Base station | IBM-Dockingstation | Fjutsi Siemens Dockingstation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Notebook | Notebook | Notebook | Networking | Docking_station | Docking_station |
| Product specs | 13” flat screen 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Memory : 1 GB DDR2– SO-DIMM HDD : 100 GB color : white |
17" WXGA+ TFT (1440×900) Centrino Duo 1.83GHz 1GB DDR2-RAM 100GB HDD DVD+/-RW Windows XP Profesional Modem WLAN BlueTooth |
13” flat screen 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Memory : 2 GB DDR2– SO-DIMM HDD : 120 GB color: black |
WLAN-Router 802.11b and g compatible transfer rate up to 54 Mbps |
docking station for X41 (00000008) | No specification |
| GTIN | 00000004 | 00000007 | 00000010 | 00000013 | 00000016 | 00000019 |
| Price | $ 1,449.00 | $ 1,249.99 | $ 2,049.00 | $ 199,00 | $ 269,95 | $ 234,00 |
Service Requests:
the following service request are classified by the complexity of service discovery.
A: Discovery based on clear defined product specifications
Goal A1:
Apple Mac Book 13” at least Intel Duo Core Processor 2.0 GHz at least 1 GB RAM at least 100 GB HDD color: white at most 1500 $
- Vendor Rummage: not enough processor power
- Vendor Hawker: too little RAM
- Vendor Bargainer (00000004): suitable
- Vendor Rummage (13" Macbook black): too expensive
- Vendor Bargainer (13" Macbook black): too expensive
Goal A2:
Apple Mac Book 13” Intel Duo Core Processor 2.0 GHz at least 512 MB RAM at least 60 GB HDD color: white or black at most 1500 $
- Vendor Rummage (13" Macbook white): not enough processor power
- Vendor Hawker (00000003): suitable
- Vendor Bargainer (00000004): suitable
- Vendor Rummage (13" Macbook black): too expensive
- Vendor Bargainer (13" Macbook black): too expensive
B: Additionally specify preferences
Goal B1:
Apple Mac Book 13”
at least Intel Duo Core Processor 1.8 GHz
at least 512 MB RAM
at least 60 GB HDD
color: white or black
at most 1500 $
the price is most important to me, get me the cheapest offer if the other requirements are met
- Vendor Rummage (00000001): suitable and best
- Vendor Hawker (00000003): suitable and second
- Vendor Bargainer (00000004): suitable and third
- Vendor Rummage (13" Macbook black): too expensive
- Vendor Bargainer (13" Macbook black): too expensive
Goal B2:
Apple Mac Book 13”
Intel Duo Core Processor 2.0 GHz
at least 1 GB RAM
at least 100 GB HDD
color: black
price roundabout 1500 $ (at the very most 1800$)
if the white notebook is significantly less expensive (more than 100$), then buy the white one instead of the black one. Prefer less expensive notebooks if the color rule does not apply.
- Vendor Rummage (13" Macbook white): not enough processor power
- Vendor Hawker: not enough RAM
- Vendor Bargainer (00000004): white, 1449$, suitable and preferred
- Vendor Rummage (00000002): black, 1699$, suitable
- Vendor Bargainer (13" Macbook black): too expensive
C: Composition of services
Apple Mac Book 13”
Intel Duo Core Processor 2.0 GHz
at least 512 MB RAM
at least 80 GB HDD
color: black
and
Web cam for Notebooks >= 640*480 pixel VGA
Notebook sleeve 13”
- Vendor Rummage (00000002) or Bargainer (00000010) for the Mac Book (the others are white)
- Vendor Rummage (00000011) for the web cam (the others do not specify a resolution or it is too low)
- Vendor Hawker (00000015) for the sleeve
Any Laptop
at least 512 MB RAM
at least 40 GB HDD
and
a compatible docking station
Prefer cheaper products
- Vendor Bargainer (HP NX9420) + Vendor Rummage (HP Dockingstation for NX9XXXXseries), least expensive offer
- Vendor Hawker (HP NX9000) + Vendor Rummage (HP Dockingstation for NX9XXXXseries), second least expensive offer
- Vendor Rummage (IBM X41) + Vendor Hawker (IBM Dockingstation), third least expensive offer
- Vendor Rummage (IBM X41) + Vendor Bargainer (IBM Dockingstation), most expensive offer
Apple Mac Book 13”
Intel Duo Core Processor 2.0 GHz
at least 512 MB RAM
at least 80 GB HDD
and
Web cam for Notebooks >= 640*480 pixel VGA
Notebook sleeve 13”
total price no more than 1750$
- Vendor Hawker (00000003) or Bargainer (00000004) for the Mac Book (Vendor Rummage has not enough processor power, Bargainer is too expensive, Vendor Rummages black 13" Macbook is too expensive after the web cam is added)
- Vendor Rummage (00000011) for the web cam (the others do not specify a resolution or it is to low)
- Vendor Hawker (00000015) for the sleeve
Apple Mac Book 13”
Intel Duo Core Processor 2.0 GHz
at least 512 MB RAM
at least 80 GB HDD
and
Web cam for Notebooks >= 640*480 pixel VGA
Notebook sleeve 13”
Total price no more than 1750$: as long as the price limit is satisfied, choose the better product:
The processor power of the notebook is most important to me. Besides that I rather need more RAM than a bigger HDD.
If possible prefer webcams with a higher resolution.
- Vendor Hawker (00000003) or Bargainer (00000004, preferred since better product) for the Mac Book (Vendor Rummage has not enough processor power or is too expensive fter the web cam is added, Vendor Bargainer/00000010 is too expensive)
- Vendor Rummage for the web cam (00000011) (the others do not specify a resolution or it is too low)
- Vendor Hawker for the sleeve (00000015)
Quick Links
- Bargainer WSDL - Test with Mindreef
- Hawker WSDL - Test with Mindreef
- Rummage WSDL - Test with Mindreef
- XML Schema used by these shops
Main Contact
If you are interested in presenting a solution to this scenario or have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Ulrich Küster about general questions or Srdjan Komazec with any testbed related issues.
Credits
This scenario was designed by Ulrich Küster, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. The implementation has been done by Ulrich Küster, Holger Lausen and Zhixian.