Scenario: Discovery II and Simple Composition

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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.

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
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Service Offer

Note that the GTIN provides a (fictious) global unique product identifier!


Rummage
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


Hawker
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


Bargainer
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
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Service Requests:

the following service request are classified by the complexity of service discovery.

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A: Discovery based on clear defined product specifications

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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
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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
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B: Additionally specify preferences

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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
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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$), then buy the white one instead of the black one.
  • Vendor Rummage (13" Macbook white): not enough processor power
  • Vendor Hawker: not enough RAM
  • Vendor Bargainer (00000004): white, 1449$, suitable and preferred
  • Vendor Rummage (00000002): black, 1699$, suitable
  • Vendor Bargainer (13" Macbook black): too expensive
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C: Composition of services

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Goal C1 (unrelated composition):

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
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Goal C2 (correlated composition):

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
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Goal C3 (unrelated but global condition):

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
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Goal C4 (unrelated with global condition and preferences):

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)
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Quick Links

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Credits

This scenario was designed by Ulrich Küster. The implementation has be done by Ulrich Küster, Holger Lausen and Zhixian.

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