Web services data aggregation system and method

A method for collecting and accessing data related to Web Services, the method comprising:

• receiving service criteria from a service requester;
• selecting candidate services that match the service criteria;
• invoking the candidate services;
• and
• aggregating results provided by the candidate services.

An apparatus for collecting and accessing data related to Web Services, the apparatus comprising:

• means for storing descriptions of services;
• means for receiving service criteria from a service requester, accessing the descriptions of services, and providing a list of candidate services that match the service criteria;
• means for receiving the list of candidate services and invoking each service contained therein;
• and
• means for constructing a composite schema and aggregating results provided by the invoked services.

An article of manufacture comprising a program storage medium readable by a processor and embodying one or more instructions executable by processor to perform a method of method for collecting and accessing data related to Web Services, the method comprising:

• receiving service criteria from a service requester;
• selecting candidate services that match the service criteria;
• invoking the candidate services;
• and
• aggregating results provided by the candidate services.

A method for constructing a composite schema for use in processing data from individual sources, the method comprising:

• examining an element type within a schema corresponding to a data source;
• conducting a test to determine if the composite schema contains sufficient entries corresponding to the element type;
• adding an element to the composite schema if the composite schema lacks sufficient entries;
• and
• mapping the element to the composite schema if the composite schema contains sufficient entries.

A method for aggregating data from individual sources, the method comprising:

• examining a value within a data object;
• creating a new list when the examined value is previously unknown;
• and
• adding a reference to the data object within a list corresponding to the examined value.