Deters, Ralph2009-08-172013-01-042010-09-112013-01-042009-082009-08August 200http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-08172009-144031Web Services (WS) are one of the most promising approaches for building loosely coupled systems. However, due to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the WS environment, ensuring good QoS is still non-trivial. While WS tend to scale better than tightly coupled systems, they introduce a larger communication overhead and are more susceptible to server/resource latency. Traditionally this problem has been addressed by relying on negotiated Service Level Agreement to ensure the required QoS, or the development of elaborate compensation handlers to minimize the impact of undesirable latency. This research focuses on the use of cooperation between consumers and providers as an effective means of optimizing resource utilization and consumer experiences. It introduces a novel cooperative approach to implement the cooperation between consumers and providers.en-UScooperationWeb Servicescachingpredictionlockingtext