Sådhanå Ó (2021) 46:89 Indian Academy of Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s12046-021-01619-ySadhana(0123456789().,-volV)FT3](0123456789().,-volV) Incorporating blockchain for semantic web service selection (SWSS) method S SRIDEVI1,*, G R KARPAGAM1 and B VINOTH KUMAR2 1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore 641 004, India 2 Department of Information Technology, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] MS received 21 May 2019; revised 13 August 2020; accepted 19 March 2021 Abstract. Customized Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) prediction play an important role in helping users to utilize high-quality service-oriented systems. To obtain accurate prediction results, many approaches have been investigated in recent years. However, these approaches do not fully address trustworthy of QoES (Quality of Service and Experience) values, which is insist on unreliable centralized prediction frameworks, that leading to an imprecise selection of web service. To address this issue, inspired by blockchain with distributed ledger technology, distributed consensus mechanisms, trusted environment, etc., we propose an extended Personalized and Generalized fuzzy TOPSIS approach for QoES prediction over ethereum blockchain to remove unreliable services. Then, the Blockchain-based extended fuzzy TOPSIS approach is employed to evaluate the proposed approach on real-world web services datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing approaches, making it much more effective than con- ventional techniques. Keywords. Web services; quality of service; quality of experience; quality of selection; QoES prediction; blockchain; extended fuzzy TOPSIS; personalized and generalized factors. 1. Introduction (IOPE). Afterward, functionally similar web services are retrieved from the service registry like UDDI using The Web services are created, published, and accessed via matchmaking algorithms. The real challenge arises when the web using standard web protocols. Basically, web ser- selecting the best services from the list of similar discov- vices exchange information between various web applica- ered services in terms of user-constrained non-functional tions. Web services play a significant role in service- properties namely QoS values [3]. Yet, most of the web oriented-Architecture (SOA) towards composing various service selection process has been carried out using provi- business web services processes together that act as the der-based QoS values. But in a real-world scenario, users’ driving force behind the Service-Oriented Computing perspective in terms of feedback or experience of using the (SOC) model [1]. The main goal of web services coordi- service plays a crucial factor in the web service selection nation is to consolidate several heterogeneous business process. These approaches are based on the concept of QoE processes to satisfy the user requirement which is not sat- [4]. Thus, the services are picked and ranked based on the isfied by a single web service. Examples of complex web integrated user-Constrained QoS offered by service provi- services applications are online travel plans, online pur- ders and user’s experienced QoE weightages. To select the chasing of books, insurance brokering system, etc. To best web service for a particular task, various user-con- achieve the aforementioned user requirements, several web strained QoS factors and QoE values should be considered services are organized optimally to achieve a user goal. [5]. The top-ranking services will be selected as the best There are four phases involved to achieve the web service service and given for the composition process [6]. composition process (WSC). They are: i) Service Discov- Accordingly, several possible composition plans are gen- ery, ii) Service Selection, iii) service composition, and iv) erated by combining various selected individual services Service Execution. The foremost task in the semantic web using composition methods like-colored Petri-nets, Sword, service composition is the service discovery process [2]. OWL-X plan planner, etc. For that, initially, the user request is transformed as a query However, the primary activity in the web service selec- to predict inputs, outputs, preconditions, and effects tion process is to select the best services by considering several complex multi-criteria QoS and QoE values jointly *For correspondence called QoES values. Although the previous studies 89 Page 2 of 14 Sådhanå (2021) 46:89 developed numerous approaches to advance the knowledge 2. The functionality of a commercial-purpose web service of service selection, further studies are essential to consider cannot be changed. Service providers mostly exemplify the imprecise information concerning the service features, higher QoS and QoE values rather than original QoS and provider’s assessment criteria, and the decision making by QoE values (as merged called QoES value) to make their using personalized and generalized factors. As the service service in the selection list. As the conventional selection and composition process are executed in a cen- centralized QoES evaluation techniques did not have tralized platform, there is a chance for service providers and the ability to check the quality and source of offered non- to provide counterfeit QoES values about their service in functional values, it undergoes data breaches and selects order to make selected in the selection list. The existing unpleasant service. For that, a new novel trusted smart centralized platform could not evaluate the provider’s non- contract-based platform is created for the QoES-aware functionality values. Meanwhile, the users also do not have web service selection and composition process to the ability to check the service quality. These commercial enhance trust, efficiency, and transparency in web purpose web services are grievous could contain counterfeit services selection, provider’s quality information that can even expose to data 3. Extensive experiments have been conducted on combin- breaches. The vast majority of these platforms are propri- ing amazon web service customer reviews datasets and etary in nature, giving no negotiating power for users to QWS dataset over the truffle ethereum framework to fully trust the platform. The objective of the paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Blockchain-based propose a novel decision-making technique, i.e., an exten- QoES-aware selection model in terms of precision, ded Fuzzy TOPSIS by considering personalized and gen- recall, F-measure, and accuracy. The experimental eralized criteria for efficient service selection. This entire results demonstrate that the proposed Blockchain-based selection process is executed in the ethereum platform in Extended Fuzzy TOPSIS QoES-aware selection model order to enhance trust, clear communication, efficiency, and achieves substantial progress over conventional selection transparent selection of web services. models. The Ethereum Smart Contracts are commonly called The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 second-generation cryptocurrency, which utilizes a provides insights into related works. Section 3 describes the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism [7]. Using the perceptual overview of extended fuzzy TOPSIS based blockchain platform for only cryptocurrency transac- QOES-aware semantic web service selection method over tions, the Ethereum Blockchain platform sees itself ethereum blockchain platform Architecture is presented in as a network for general purpose decentralized tamper- section 4. The effective implementation of the proposed proof applications. Technically this is denied in the approach along with the case-study is represented in section syntax of other blockchain financial transactions plat- 5. The experimental analysis and discussion are explained forms [8]. in section 6. Finally, in section 7 the conclusions are As the Blockchain platform radically changes the tradi- provided. tional way of service publishing and composing of web services, a smart contract-enabled blockchain is developed to build a self-governing and self-executing community [9]. In combination with public-key cryptography, it allows 2. Related works users to securely access web services without compromis- ing privacy. As inspired by the current successful 2.1 Semantic web service selection process entrenching of blockchain-based smart contracts in various Web service technology plays a vital role in developing real-time applications, the objective of the paper is to distributed applications that are accessed via the internet. incorporate the smart contract for the QoS-aware semantic WSDL standard is used to describe the functional aspects of web service selection process. web services. As the evolution of semantic web technology, The main contributions of the paper are summarized as which improves the way to search, organize, integrate, and follows: evolve web-accessible resources like web documents, ser- 1. An extended Fuzzy TOPSIS technique is used for vices, etc. The Web Ontology Language (OWL) in the considering the personalized and generalized factors semantic web captures the relationship between the con- for efficient service selection. In order to retrieve the cepts easily. Thus, the web service documents are written in personalized and generalized criteria, the key non- the OWL language and published in the registry