Reputation system for web services

• US 20040122926A1
• Filed: 12/23/2002
• Published: 06/24/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Moore, George, Meredith, Lucius Gregory
• Granted Patent: US 7,467,206 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

A system and method for automating the web service selection based on reputation information, to help negotiate a contractual web service binding between a client and a server. Reputation information may be schematized into behavioral attributes such as web service responsiveness, web service latency, web service uptime, cost data, business solvency and other trustworthiness and business-related data. Some of the reputation data may be empirically determined, and provided by an independent or other trusted auditor. In one implementation, a client queries a search engine, which returns a ranked list of web services, with the ranking based on reputation scores computed for each web service as collected by an auditor. Clients may provide computational data to weigh the attributes separately. A corporate internet can maintain reputation data for web services to act as an auditor, and a web service server can also execute trusted code to act as an auditor.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

a listing mechanism that identifies a plurality of web services;

an auditor that collects reputation data for the plurality of web services; and

a selection mechanism that narrows the plurality of web services identified by the listing mechanism, based on the reputation data provided by the auditor, into a subset that identifies at least one web service.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the listing mechanism comprises a web service search engine.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the selection mechanism includes a server component that returns a list of at least two web services as the subset to a requesting client.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the selection mechanism includes a client component that further narrows the list into a single selected web service.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the subset identifies a single selected web service.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the selection mechanism includes a ranking mechanism that ranks each web service in the subset into an order based on the reputation data.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the selection mechanism determines a score for each web service in the subset based on the reputation data.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the auditor collects reputation data from a plurality of web service providers.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the auditor executes within an intranet and measures actual performance of web services.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the auditor executes on a server that provides a web service.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the auditor comprises an independent entity with respect to the listing mechanism and each provider of each web service in the subset, and wherein the auditor is accessible via a network connection.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the auditor collects reputation data from a plurality of reviewers.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the reviewers comprise clients that request the web services.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data comprises technically-oriented attribute data.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data comprises web service responsiveness information.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the reputation data comprises web service latency information.

17. The system of claim 14 wherein the reputation data comprises web service uptime information.

18. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data comprises business-oriented attribute data.

19. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data comprises web service cost information.

20. The system of claim 14 wherein the reputation data comprises information representing a solvency level of a provider of a web service.

21. The system of claim 14 wherein the reputation data comprises information representing an external auditor of a provider of a web service.

22. The system of claim 14 wherein the reputation data comprises information representing a privacy policy of a provider of a web service.

23. The system of claim 14 wherein the reputation data comprises information representing certificate data of a provider of a web service.

24. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data comprises technically-oriented attribute data and business-oriented attribute data.

25. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data is categorized into a set of scores, and wherein the selection mechanism determines a ranking score for each web service in the subset based on the set of scores and at least one weight value corresponding to at least one of the scores.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein a client provides each weight value in a query to a server.

27. The system of claim 1 wherein the reputation data is categorized into a set of scores, and wherein a requesting client indicates reputation requirements for at least one of the scores in a query to a server.

28. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

receiving a query for web service data, the query including request data comprising at least one basic operating requirement and at least one reputation requirement for a web service;

using the request data to locate a set of web services that meet each basic operating requirement and a subset of at least one web service that meets each reputation requirement; and

returning the subset in response to the query.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the query is received at a search engine, and further comprising, at the search engine, crawling cached contract data to locate the set of web services that meet each basic operating requirement.

30. The method of claim 29 further comprising, at the search engine, crawling cached reputation data to locate the subset of web services that meet each reputation requirement.

31. The method of claim 28 further comprising, communicating with a provider of a web service identified in the subset to verify that the provider meets each basic operating requirement and each reputation requirement.

32. The method of claim 28 further comprising, communicating with an auditor to verify that a provider of a web service identified in the subset meets each basic operating requirement and each reputation requirement.

33. The method of claim 28 wherein the query is received at a search engine from a client, and wherein returning the subset in response to the query comprises returning a list to the client.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein the list includes at least two web services, and further comprising, at the client, receiving the list and selecting a web service from the list.

35. The method of claim 28 wherein the subset identifies at least two web services, and further comprising, ranking each web service in the subset into an order based on collected reputation data.

36. The method of claim 28 further comprising determining a score for each web service in the subset based on collected reputation data.

37. The method of claim 28 further comprising, collecting reputation data from a plurality of reviewers.

38. The method of claim 28 further comprising, collecting reputation data from a web service provider.

39. The method of claim 38 wherein collecting reputation data from the web service provider comprises measuring actual performance of a web service corresponding to the provider.

40. The method of claim 38 wherein measuring the actual performance comprises measuring web service responsiveness.

41. The method of claim 40 wherein measuring web service responsiveness comprises determining how often a web service reads from a specific port.

42. The method of claim 38 wherein measuring the actual performance comprises measuring web service latency.

43. The method of claim 42 wherein measuring web service latency comprises determining a guaranteed not-to-exceed latency for the results of a specific operation.

44. The method of claim 38 wherein measuring the actual performance comprises measuring web service uptime.

45. The method of claim 44 wherein measuring web service uptime comprises observing how often a site or device is available.

46. The method of claim 44 wherein measuring web service uptime comprises observing what time of day a web service is unavailable.

47. The method of claim 28 wherein the request data comprises categorized weight data corresponding to at least some categories of scores corresponding to reputation data for each web service, and wherein using the request data comprises applying the weight data to the scores to determine a resultant score for each web service.

48. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 28.

49. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

maintaining information that identifies a plurality of web services;

obtaining reputation data for the plurality of web services; and

selecting a subset from the plurality of web services based on the reputation data, the subset comprising at least one web service.

50. The method of claim 49 further comprising, receiving a request for the subset from a client, and returning the subset in response to the request.

51. The method of claim 49 further comprising, ranking each web service in the subset into an order based on the reputation data.

52. The method of claim 49 wherein selecting a subset comprises determining a reputation score for each web service in the subset.

53. The method of claim 49 wherein obtaining reputation data comprises communicating with an auditor.

54. The method of claim 49 wherein obtaining reputation data comprises communicating with each provider of each web service.

55. The method of claim 49 further comprising collecting the reputation data.

56. The method of claim 49 wherein collecting the reputation data comprises measuring actual performance of a web service.

57. The method of claim 49 further comprising, verifying the reputation data.

58. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 49.

59. In a computing environment, a system comprising,

a client that requests a web service;

a server that provides a web service corresponding to the requested web service;

an auditor that collects reputation data for the requested web service; and

a search engine that receives the web service request from the client, identifies the server as corresponding to the requested web service, uses the reputation data to select the web service from among other servers that provide web services that correspond to the requested web service, and returns an identifier of the server to the client in response to the request.

60. The system of claim 59 wherein the search engine returns the identifier in a list of identifiers to the client, each identifier corresponding to a server that provides a web service that corresponds to the requested web service.

61. The system of claim 60 wherein the list of identifiers is ranked according to the reputation data.

62. The system of claim 61 wherein the list of identifiers corresponds to a narrowed subset of the other servers that provide web services that correspond to the requested web service.

63. The system of claim 59 wherein the client reports reputation data to the auditor.

64. The system of claim 59 wherein the server provides reputation data to the auditor.

65. The system of claim 59 wherein the search engine caches the reputation data.

66. The system of claim 65 wherein the search engine communicates with the auditor to receive the reputation data.

67. The system of claim 66 wherein the search engine communicates with the auditor to verify the reputation data for the server.