Exploring a multi-faceted framework for SOC: how to develop secure Web-service interactions?

Abstract

Service oriented computing (SOC) demands an infrastructure that seamlessly integrates all connection points between business processes, services and associated support resources. Parts of the infrastructure may be supported by existing standards such as XACML and BPEL. However, an integral and sound framework that takes into account all these issues and serves as the formal underpinning of this infrastructure is currently lacking. A multi-faceted framework to enforce minimal levels of security not only at the level of the network (e.g., using encryption), but also of business processes, is of paramount importance. To address this challenge, we explore an event-driven framework for service oriented computing (EFSOC) that is organized in four tiers: the event tier, the business process tier, the resource tier, and the access control tier. The event tier encompasses definitions of business-related events, and supports their propagation throughout the business process flow. The business process tier specifies the dynamic interactions between business processes and services. The resource tier describes how service invocations interact with organizational resources, while the access control tier defines access roles that are allowed to invoke certain services.