Services Computing

This book bridges the gap between Business and IT services and proposes an original life-cycle view of the modern service industry. Major solution architectures, technologies and research methods are discussed in the lifecycle of services innovation research. The book provides readers with new research and solution methods to enable IT services and computing technology to better create and manage business services, which is the goal of Services Computing.


Dr. Liang-Jie Zhang is a Research Staff Member (RSM) in Services Technologies at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. His research focus is SOA and Web Services for Industry Solutions. He is also co-leading an IBM-wide SOA Solution Stack project by working with his colleagues from IBM Global Services Team, Software Group, Sales & Distribution, and Research Division. Currently, he is the founding chair of the Services Computing PIC (Professional Interest Community) at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center to lead professional activities for Services Computing discipline.

In 2004 and 2005, Dr. Zhang was appointed as the Chief Architect of Industrial Standards at IBM Software Group. In this position, he was playing leadership role in helping define IBM's strategy for industrial standards and open architecture for service-oriented business solutions. He was also invited by the Chief Technology Officer and VP of IBM Global Industrial Sector to define the technical strategy for the Global Industrial Sector at IBM Sales and Distribution (S&D).

Dr. Zhang is one of the leading pioneers in the field of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services. Dr. Zhang was the lead inventor and architect of Business Explorer for Web Services (BE4WS, http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/be4ws), WSIL Explorer (part of IBM Emerging Technologies Toolkit), and Web Services Outsourcing Manager (WSOM, http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/wsom), all released by IBM alphaWorks. He led a team from IBM Research and Software Group to create the first comprehensive Web services-based Managed E-Hub to enable services provisioning and business on-boarding for supporting business process on demand.

Dr. Zhang and his team invented non-intrusive hyperlink indicators for interactive video in 1996 and interactive digital TV commerce system in 1999. These inventions have laid a solid foundation for today's IPTV industry. From product impact perspectives, he was a lead inventor and architect of the following IBM rich media for e-business products: HotVideo (http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/hotvideo) and HotAudio. Then he became a member of the core architect team of the supported HotMedia product (http://www.ibm.com/hotmedia) and the lead architect of Interactive digital TV commerce solution in IBM Software Group. HotMedia was part of the IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite for creating rich media-enabled catalogs and transactions. Dr. Zhang had been leading the technical aspects of the technology commercialization process from his invention to IBM HotMedia and IBM HotMedia TV products for 3 years in this effort.

He was presented with the IBM 'Outstanding Technical Achievement Award' for HotMedia Architecture in 1999. IBM HotMedia was awarded the CNET/PC Expo's 'Best of Show Software Award' in 2000. He received IBM First/Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth/Sixth/Seventh Plateau Creative Contribution Award in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2002, 2003, and 2003 respectively. He was also presented with 'The Who's Who New Century Medal' in 2000. Recently, he was presented with 'The Outstanding Achievement Award' by the World Academy of Sciences in 2003 for his research contribution to the field of Web services and to the 2003 International Conference on Web Services (ICWS'03). Dr. Zhang received the Innovation Leadership Award (for his outstanding contributions to Services Computing and IPTV Commerce) presented by the Chinese Institute of Electronics and E-Business Summit 2006 in March 2006.

Dr. Zhang has more than 30 patents worldwide (11 US patents) in the areas of Web services, e-commerce, rich media, data management, and information appliances. He has published more than 80 technical papers in Journals, Book Chapters, and Conference Proceedings.

Liang-Jie received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Xidian University in 1990, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Xi'an Jiaotong University in 1992, and a Ph.D. in Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Control at Tsinghua University in 1996.