An Optimization Algorithm for Service Composition Based on an Improved FOA

Large-scale service composition has become an important research topic in Service-Oriented Computing (SOC). Quality of Service (QoS) has been mostly applied to represent nonfunctional properties of web services and to differentiate those with the same functionality. Many studies for measuring service composition in terms of QoS have been completed. Among current popular optimization methods for service composition, the exhaustion method has some disadvantages such as requiring a large number of calculations and poor scalability. Similarly, the traditional evolutionary computation method has defects such as exhibiting slow convergence speed and falling easily into the local optimum. In order to solve these problems, an improved optimization algorithm, WS_FOA (Web Service composition based on Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm) for service composition, was proposed, on the basis of the modeling of service composition and the FOA. Simulated experiments demonstrated that the algorithm is effective, feasible, stable, and possesses good global searching ability.