Chapter 8 Automated Service Composition Based on Behaviors: The Roman Model

Abstract During the last years, many approaches have been proposed in order to address the issue of automated service composition. In this chapter, we discuss the so-called “Roman model”, in which services are abstracted as transition systems and the objective is to obtain a composite service that preserves a desired interaction, expressed as a (virtual) target service. We will also outline its deployment in the challenging applications of smart houses, i.e., buildings pervasively equipped with sensors and actuators making their functionalities available according to the serviceoriented paradigm. Services are software artifacts, possibly distributed and built on top of different technologies, that export a description of themselves, are accessible to external clients and communicate through a commonly known, standard interface which enables interoperability. More in general, Service Oriented Computing (SOC) is a computin