Reliability prediction for service component architectures with the SCA-ASM component model

In service-oriented computing, software applications are dynamically built by assembling existing, loosely-coupled, distributed, and heterogeneous services. Predicting their reliability is important to appropriately drive the selection and assembly of services. This paper presents an approach to predict the reliability of a service component architecture. We adopt a lightweight formal component model, SCA-ASM, as core modeling technique for both architecture and behavior, supported by a run-time platform. This component model is based on the OASIS standard Service Component Architecture for heterogeneous service assembly and on the formal method Abstract State Machines for modeling service behavior, interactions, and orchestration in an abstract but executable way. The proposed reliability prediction method exploits ideas from architecture-based and path-based reliability models.