Method and apparatus for dynamically selecting functionally equivalent Web services through a single autonomic proxy

摘要

A method and system for dynamically selecting functionally equivalent web services through a single autonomic proxy. The present invention addresses quality of service issues common in the Web service environment, such as failover, redundancy, performance, and security. The present invention dynamically tunes the Web service environment by allowing an autonomic proxy to determine which Web service, from multiple functionally equivalent Web services, to invoke. When a client request to locate a Web service is received, an autonomic proxy queries the UDDI registry based on the client request. The autonomic proxy locates multiple Web services candidates to service the request, wherein each Web service candidate is functionally equivalent to the other Web service candidates. The present invention may also apply policies based upon non-technical attributes of a service, e.g. business criteria. Such business criteria may be a preferred vendor or business partner or the cost of the service.