On web service quality using multi-criteria decision-making and fuzzy inference methods

Abstract

Quality of service (QoS) is a concept that has been widely explored over the last decade to characterize Web Services (WS) from a non-functional perspective. However, QoS of WS is dynamic, different for each user, and complex by its nature; therefore, it is challenging to determine. Nevertheless, various authors have proposed different approaches for QoS finding. However, there is a gap in knowing how different QoS determining approaches affect QoS value and what is the relationship between the obtained QoS values. This paper presents the QoS value finding and analysis approach, which allows us to investigate the relationship between the applied methods and evaluate the correlation of results. The experiments were conducted by applying a fuzzy control system (FCS) and multi-criteria decision-making methods TOPSIS and WASPAS to determine QoS values and find the relationship between the obtained QoS values. The obtained results show that there is a strong positive linear relationship between QoS values obtained by WASPAS and TOPSIS, WASPAS and FCS, a very strong positive linear relationship between TOPSIS and FCS, and a very strong monotonic relationship between WASPAS and TOPSIS, WASPAS and FCS, and TOPSIS and FCS. Consequently, the three analysed QoS determining approaches can be successfully applied as alternatives.