Online Information Review

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the feasible mining and proper selection of QoS-aware services for a P2P-based business process enactment framework, and enhance the relevant workflow prototype.

Design/methodology/approach – Through observing and analysing unpredictable dynamic changes that commonly exist in e-service workflow, a set of QoS specifications and monitoring mechanisms in a P2P workflow framework is proposed. These specifications are an evolving extension of services' description with semantic web facilitators for P2P-based e-services.

Findings – It has been demonstrated that the QoS-OWL approach can be effectively used to describe and exploit e-services, particularly in a decentralised environment. QoS-OWL is also able to provide the deliberation of geographic information for e-services, and facilitates the peers' effective cooperation and automates business processes. It is recommended that the approach be adopted in the dynamic online information system environment to increase efficiency and reduce costs in running e-services.

Practical implications – The QoS attributes discussed in this paper are relatively typical for benchmarking purposes, so the extension of the QoS metrics specifications and related protocols need to be discussed in future work.

Originality/value – The authors propose an approach to dynamically selecting appropriate service-oriented peers in a P2P network, where the composition of e-services in a business process can be enhanced significantly. The approach is based on ontology and QoS perspectives, and the descriptions of services have rich semantic features in an attempt to make the service selection more intelligent and reliable. Therefore the proposal offers e-service providers innovative initiatives to re-engineer their business services.