Architecture and Metaphors for Eternally Adaptive Service Ecosystems

In this paper, we first motivate the need for innovative open service frameworks that ensure capability of self-adaptability and long-lasting evolvability (i.e., eternity). On this basis, we discuss how such frameworks should get inspiration from natural ecosystems, by enabling modelling and deployment of services as autonomous individuals in an ecosystem of other services, data sources, and pervasive devices. A reference architecture is presented to clarify the concepts expressed, and then several possible approaches to realise the idea are surveyed and critically analyzed.