Toward dynamic service provisioning in the homecare domain

Abstract

Dynamicity is one of the main challenges in providing sustainable solutions for the homecare domain. The dynamicity of homecare systems, caused by external entities like care-receivers and care-givers, can be addressed through combining distributed and heterogenous services both in design and runtime. In general, several research fields such as dynamic service composition, context-aware service composition and dynamic configuration contribute to provide solutions to handle the dynamicity. However, the dynamicity requirements and constrains in homecare domain demands its own solutions. In this paper, we explain our understanding of a homecare provisioning platform and its external entities which interact with the platform. Based on our application scenario and literature study, we identify different types of changes which are imposed by the external entities. Moreover, the characteristics of the external entities, which need to be taken into account to address the dynamicity, are discussed. Then, we study the existing dynamic service composition approaches to see their feasibility for the homecare domain. Finally, we explain our motivation for choosing a hybrid service composition approach as our basis for the homecare provisioning platform with respect to the identified changes and characteristics coming from the external entities.