Mydhili K Nair et al /International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering Vol.1(3), 2009, 248-253 248 Generic Web Services: A Step Towards Green Computing Mydhili K Nair Dept.of Information Science & Engg. M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology Bangalore, India mydhili.nair@gmail.com Dr. V. Gopalakrishna Integra Micro Systems Bangalore, India vgopi@integramicro.com Abstract—Software as a Service (SaaS) is a buzzword especially in the realm of Cloud Computing. We can reduce the number of applications deployed on the data-centers by using similar applications hosted by the SaaS providers. Thus, “reusability” of a SaaS is a key-point of focus promoting the same code-base of an application serving multiple clients. This reduces the need for more storage space and computational power in the data-centers thus aligning the SaaS architecture to a “greener” computing paradigm. In this paper, we provide a prototype implementation framework, which uses the same web service to Register and Report the results of a backend Network Monitoring (NM) as well as Weather Monitoring application. We have designed and developed this “Generic Web Services Framework” as well as both the backend applications. The NM application is done using both Mobile Agents and SNMP and the WM application is implemented using Temperature Sensors. This paper aims to give a prototype implementation as proof of SaaS maturity levels of a generic / reusable web service thus orienting towards green computing. Keywords-Cloud Computing; Network Monitoring ; Web Services; Green Computing; I. INTRODUCTION Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model in which a service provider offers an Internet hosted version of their application with the hosting done either in house through a dedicated server or at hosting space managed by a third party. The customers of the service vendor access this application over Internet and pays for its utilization on a per-use, per-product or subscription-basis [7]. An example is a small handicraft business in a remote village in India, which immediately has a global presence and immediate access to the global market by just listing its products on a well-known portal such as e-Bay! Thus, SaaS enabled by the amalgam of corporate intranets and the Internet proves to have a great potential to impact our everyday lives. The most common implementation of a SaaS offered over the Internet is as Web Services where ‘Services’ are an implementation of the functionality of a business enterprise, which can be utilized by users of different applications. The logic of the service is hidden from the consumers of the service. In simple terms, services are the end-points of a connection [8]. ‘Web Services(WS)’ are the set of protocols by which these end connections are made by allowing the services to be published, discovered and used in a technology neutral, standard form. The five key benefits of Web Services Based SaaS are [2]: • Save money • Save time • Focus on business needs of the software rather than on deployment and maintenance infrastructure. • Gain immediate access to the latest innovations to the software offered as a service. • Join a global community using the software as a service thus gaining instant benchmarking data. Therefore, we leverage on the concept that SaaS is a business model, which is proven and will continue to have a global impact It is certainly not one of those transient disruptive technologies that comes and goes is here to stay through the coming years. Hence, in this paper, we focus on optimizing SaaS design, deployment and maintenance by using generic / reusable Web Services(WS), thus aligning business architectures towards energy efficient green computing as well as adding a sixth key benefit to SaaS described above, namely, • Save Energy by reducing storage, computational and processing power at the servers where these “green” services are deployed. In this paper, we depict here the use of ‘Generic’ Web Services at the business enterprise, which are not tightly coupled / tied down to any specific application. This enables multiple applications to ‘use’ / ‘consume’ these Web Services. We also present implementation results of usage of two such Generic WS by two completely different backend monitoring legacy applications, namely Network Monitoring and Weather (specifically Temperature) Monitoring. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 describes the overall architecture of our Green Computing Framework. as well as highlights the design of the Generic Web Services. Section 3 presents the implementation results while Section 4 focuses on the conclusion and scope of future enhancements to our Generic Web Services Framework. ISSN : 0975-3397