METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SERVICE COMPOSITION IN A SERVICE E-MARKETPLACE

• US 20120296755A1
• Filed: 05/19/2011
• Published: 11/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonica SA
• Original Assignee: Telefonica SA
• Inventors: Toro Escudero, Maria Aranzazu, Garcia Gomez, Sergio
• Granted Patent: US 8,478,660 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce

Abstract

A method and a system for improving the selection of a group of services, in an exchange services environment, by a user of a telecommunication network. The following steps are comprised by the invention: defining a first set of requirements in a selection criteria manager module to be fulfilled by the services; performing a search among all services available, according to services functionalities defined in a service catalog and matching the first set of requirements; discarding services which do not fulfilled the first set of requirements; defining a second set of requirements in the selection criteria manager module, the second set of requirements indicates user preferences; assigning weights to the services taking into account the second set of requirements, data from an historical information module of previous selections of the user, data from a profile of the user with previous preferences; arranging all service combination according to the weights obtained, being the first one an optimal selection; storing the selection of the user at the historical information module.

Claims

1. A method for improving the selection of a group of services in an exchange services environment by a user of a telecommunication network, the method is characterized by comprising the next steps:

defining a first set of requirements in a selection criteria manager module to be fulfilled by the services;

performing a search among all services available, according to services functionalities defined in a service catalog and matching the first set of requirements;

discarding services which do not fulfilled the first set of requirements;

defining a second set of requirements in the selection criteria manager module, the second set of requirements indicates user preferences;

assigning weights to the services taking into account the second set of requirements, data from an historical information module of previous selections of the user, data from a profile of the user with previous preferences;

arranging all service combination according to the weights obtained, being the first one an optimal selection;

storing the selection of the user at the historical information module.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein assigning weights to the services taking into account the second set of requirements and data from an historical information module of previous selections and data from a profile of the user with previous preferences is achieved through the application of an Analytic Hierarchy Process based algorithm.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein assigning weights to the services taking into account the second set of requirements and data from an historical information module of previous selections and data from a profile of the user with previous preferences further comprising taking into account users feedback about the services.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein performing a search among all services available according to descriptions of services functionalities defined in a service catalog where the descriptions are semantic descriptions.

5. The method according to claim 1 further comprising checking a quality of service of each of the services available in the exchange services environment.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising checking information about a service level agreement agreed between the user and the service provider, including violations of said service level agreement, associated to the services available in the exchange services environment.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein the first and second requirements defined in the selection criteria manager are selected, among others, from:

functionality required by the user;

preferred number of components;

service required price;

quality of service; and

service statistics.

8. The method according to claim 1 wherein the user selecting the services is a service provider selecting services to be added to the services provided by said service provider to offer a composed service to a second user.

9. The method according to claim 8 further comprising checking information about the incomes generated by each service and the share of the incomes that are received by the service providers in the composed service.

10. The method according to claim 9 wherein the first and second requirements defined in the selection criteria manager for the service provider are selected, among others, from:

composed service level agreement;

total price margin for the composed service provider; and

composed service revenue share.

11. The method according to claim 1 wherein the exchange services environment is an electronic marketplace.

13. A computer program comprising program code means adapted to perform the steps of the method according to claim 1, when said program is run on a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor, a FPGA, an ASIC, a micro-processor, a micro-controller, or any other form of programmable hardware.

12. A system for improving the selection of a group of services in an exchange services environment by a user of a telecommunication network, the system comprises a module called Intelligent Composition Module further comprising:

a selection criteria manager (30) for defining a first and a second set of requirements for the composed services;

a selection engine (34) for performing the selection of services according to the all requirements defined in the selection criteria manager and searching among all possible service combinations;

a profile manager (28) for providing information about previous preferences of a user, stored in a profile repository (29);

an historic information repository (32) for storing previous selections of the user.

a weight calculation module (33) for weighting a selection criteria according to the second set of requirements and data from the profile and data from an historic information repository;

a composition support (31) for offering to the user or services provider an optimal composition of services according to the weights;