Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2013 45 Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A fault tolerant service discovery by self-organisation: a MAS approach Hakima Mellah* Research Centre in Scientific and Technical Information – CERIST, Information Systems and Multimedia Systems Department, 5 rue des 3 frères Aissou, Ben Aknoun, BP 143, 16030, Algiers, Algeria and High School of Computing – ESI, BP 68M Oued Smar, 16309, El Harrach Algiers, Algeria E-mail: hmellah@mail.cerist.dz *Corresponding author Salima Hassas Claude Bernard University, Liesp, Bat Nautibus, 43 Bd du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, Lyon, France E-mail: hassas@bat710.univ-lyon1.fr Habiba Drias Research Laboratory in Artificial Intelligence (LRIA), Houari Boumediene University, USTHB, BP 32 El Alia Bab Ezzouar 16 111 Algiers, Algeria E-mail: hdrias@usthb.dz Abstract: The service discovery has become an emerging phenomena in software engineering and process engineering as well. The paper presents a multi agent system (MAS) approach, for service discovery process, based on a self-organising protocol. This feature is very crucial for assuring a correct service delivery, to avoid failures or mal-function for the service discovery environment. The requirement for self-organising choreographed services have been well realised, in case of operational, functional and behavioural faults. The self-organising protocol is conceived from bacteria colony. Keywords: services failures; MAS services discovery; MAS bio-inspired protocol; self-organisation. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Mellah, H., Hassas, S. and Drias, H. (2013) ‘A fault tolerant service discovery by self-organisation: a MAS approach’, Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.45–69.