Service overlay networks have recently attracted tremendous interests. In this paper, we propose a new integrated framework for specifying services composed of service components running on different service nodes and for executing the services considering efficient utilization of overlay network resources. For a given service description written in an extended Petri net model, our method automatically derives a set of descriptions of service nodes’ behavior which specifies how service nodes on an overlay network collaborate to provide the specified services. The derived descriptions minimize channel utilization, total response time or load of service nodes based on a given cost criterion. The experimental results show that a multimedia service for decorating and transcoding video contents can be well specified and implemented. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.4 [Distributed Systems]: Distributed Applications General Terms Algorithms, Design Keywords Overlay Network, Servi...