DAML enabled web services and agents in the semantic web

Academic and industrial bodies are considering the issue of Web Services as being the next step forward. A number of efforts have been made and are evolving to define specifications and architectures for the spreading of this new breed of web applications. One such work revolves around the Semantic Web. Lead researches are trying to combine the semantic advantages that a Semantic Web can provide to Web Services. The research started with the now standardized RDF (Resource Description Framework) and continued with the creation of DAML+OIL (DARPA Agent Markup Language and Ontology Inference Layer) and its branches, particularly DAML-S (where S stands for Services) [1]. The Semantic Web's point of view, being considered in this paper presents a rich environment where the advantages of incorporating semantics in searching for Web Services can be fully expressed. This paper aims to describe an environment called DASD (DAML Agents for Service Discovery) where Web Service requesters and providers can discover each other with the intermediary action of a Matchmaking service. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.