Reputation Management for Distributed Service-Oriented Architectures

Abstract

Nowadays, several network applications require that \nconsumer nodes acquire distributed services from unknown service providers on the Internet. The main goal of consumer nodes is the selection of the best services among the huge multitude provided \nby the network. As basic criteria for this choice, service cost and Quality-of-Service (QoS) can be considered, provided that the underlying Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) be augmented in \norder to support the declaration of this information. The correct behavior of such new SOA platforms, however, will depend on the presence of some mechanisms that allow consumer nodes to \nevaluate trustworthiness of service providers. This work proposes a new methodology for discouraging antisocial behaviors of malicious service providers that declare QoS higher than the real one. The architecture is fully distributed over the network and \nemulates a decentralized hierarchical trusting authority capable of managing reputation values and of providing correct QoS assessments.