Quality of service requirements specification using an ontology

This paper describes an approach to specifying the QoS requirements of service-centric systems using an ontology for Quality of Service. A requirements matching tool which makes use of this approach is also presented. This tool allows clients to discover services and differentiate between them based upon their QoS requirements. The ways in which the tool both constrains and aids the user in constructing requirements, and applies a degree of intelligence in the matching process, demonstrates the advantages of the underlying ontology.