Grey Relational Analysis on Factors of the Quality of Web Service

Using the grey relational analysis theory, this exploratory study was to find the principal factors of Quality of Service of Web Sevice and its contributions. The paper utilized a real Quality of Web Service data sets: QWS Dataset (1.0) to grey relational analysis. The results indicate: (1) the sequence of influencing factors of Web Service selection is Best Practices, Compliance, Availability, Successability, Reliability, Latency, Response Time, Throughput, Documentation; (2) nine factors can be classified into four kinds: the first important factors are Best Practices, Compliance, and Availability; the second important factors are Successability, Reliability; the third important kind factors are Latency, Response Time; the less important factors are Throughput, Documentation; (3) the percent contributions of four kinds factors to the QoS of Web Service is 36.68%, 22.96%, 20.6%, 19.77%. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of ICMPBE International Committee.