Needs of Service Identification for Service-Oriented Business Process Management

Since the trend of adopting SOA into enterprise applications, the needs for definition and identification of services have been recognized. There is a growing body of research carried out on the identification of different types of services. Identifying right granularity services is important: if the service is of large size, it goes against the reusability principle of SOA, whereas if the service is of small size, then it causes unnecessary computing power for implementing any business functions. Without a formal (semi)- automatic approach to identify services, it is difficult in migrating existing systems into service-oriented systems. This paper explores the need for service identification for service-oriented business process management systems. The current approaches, techniques and methods of service identification are reviewed, and limitations of the each approach is analysed. New requirements and techniques are demonstrated in creating improved dynamic services with consideration for interoperability, modularity, reusability within information environment

Automated Service Identification Methods: A Review

Service identification represents the first phase in service modelling, a necessary step in SOA. This research study reviewed and analyzed the issues related to automation issues of service identification. However, the importance of service identification methods’ (SIM) automation and their business alignment are emphasized in literature, reviewing existing service identification methods (SIMs) reveals the lack of business alignment, automation as challenging issues. We close the gap by proposing ASIF which relies on automating the SIMs’ steps to identify business aligned services based on business processes and business goals

DECISION SUPPORT BY AUTOMATIC ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS PROCESS MODELS

It is advantageous for companies to have an in-depth understanding of their business processes. To support companies in decision making, based on the properties of their business processes, a method was developed for the automatic analysis of business process models. A machine-readable representation of the model is parsed to extract several features. Based on a set of domain-specific business rules, a recommendation is generated. The method was validated by implementing it in a software program and applying it to the domain of product data storage. Several experts in that domain participated in a survey. From the three features tested in this study, the ‘data access frequency’ seems to be most useful. This feature could thus be reused in future applications of the method. The method could be helpful for companies that have many large, complex, dynamic business processes, and which would like to (dynamically) optimize product data storage. In addition, by replacing a set of domain-specific rules, the method may be applied to other domains where business process models need to be analyzed to support decision making

Towards Aspects Identification in Business Process Through Process Mining

In business process models, elements can be scattered (repeated) within different processes, making it difficult to handle changes, analyze process for improvements, or check crosscutting impacts. These scattered elements are named as Aspects. Similar to the aspect-oriented paradigm in programming languages, in BPM, aspect handling has the goal to modularize the crosscutting concerns spread across the models. This process modularization facilitates the management of the process (reuse, maintenance and understanding). The current approaches for aspect identification are made manually; thus, resulting in the problem of subjectivity and lack of systematization. This paper proposes a method to automatically identify aspects in business process from its event logs. The method is based on mining techniques and it aims to solve the problem of the subjectivity identification made by specialists. The initial results from a preliminary evaluation showed evidences that the method identified correctly the aspects present in the process model

A Business Model for Managing SOA Initiatives

Para obter os benefícios corporativos com a implantação de uma abordagem SOA, não é suficiente tratar características técnicas. Uma estratégia alinhada ao negócio deve ser considerada como base para as atividades de implementação, validação, desenvolvimento e gestão de serviços. Um caso de negócio, um modelo de referência e uma arquitetura da organização devem ser estabelecidos. Este trabalho propõe objetivos, papéis e processos para governança SOA do ponto de vista da Arquitetura de Tecnologia de Informação. Os processos foram avaliados por especialistas na área de SOA que argumentam que adotariam os mesmos para a governança SOA em suas organizações

A Method for Bridging the Gap between Business Process Models and Services

Many proposals in the literature are consensual in making business processes as the starting point of a Service-Oriented system development lifecycle. However, there is no systematic approach that can be easily applied in practice. We argue that an effective SOA approach requires an integrated view of organizational business processes, where services are explicitly related to business models components. Accomplishing these requirements is vital for bridging the gap between business needs and their supporting services. This work proposes a top-down method for service identification and analysis from business process models. Each step of the method implements a set of heuristics that are also specified. The method is presented in detail, and constitutes a systematic guide for service identification and analysis. A case study is conducted to demonstrate the use of the method in practice

0006/2010 - Estudos do Profile SoaML

As técnicas tradicionais para modelagem de aplicações como, por exemplo, UML, não podem ser diretamente aplicadas à modelagem de serviços em uma abordagem SOA. Dessa forma, é necessário estendê-las a fim de que todas as informações inerentes a serviços, seus provedores e consumidores sejam especificadas. Isto pode ser feito utilizando extensões da UML. Estas extensões da linguagem são chamadas de profiles. Estes profiles UML adicionam estereótipos na linguagem para representar artefatos com semântica mais específica. Alguns profiles UML para SOA foram propostos para representar características específicas de SOA como: especificação técnica do serviço, relacionamento do provedor do serviço com seus consumidores, mensagens trocadas etc. Neste relatório são apresentados alguns conceitos básicos sobre SoaML. Este profile foi proposto pela OMG e pretende-se que este se torne um padrão para especificação de artefatos em SOA

Requirement engineering best practices for Malaysian public sector

Although a variety of ICT standards have been developed as a guide for IT Managers, the Malaysian Public Sector is in tandem by developing new policies for them. The need of Requirement Engineering Best Practices for IT Manager is to produce an appropriate Software Requirement Specification. The proposed Requirement Engineering Best Practices aims to be a standard for the Malaysian Public Sector. The need of the standard is to resolve identified complexity during software project development. The complexity of present Requirement Engineering models and standard is either too specific or too general. These models do not meet the Public Sector’s requirement and the IT Manager depends on other proposed solution or does not use any Requirement Engineering models and standard. The complexity of present software process drives the Malaysian Public Sector to create several committees for monitoring the implementation of software project. It also includes several rules and policy. The rules and policy were prepared by different or multiple agencies and is complex to understand. The proposed software projects have to go through several levels of software project approval. This process is repeated and really took times to be approved. These complexities can be overcome with a proposal of Requirement Engineering Best Practices Guideline. The development of Requirement Engineering Best Practices Guideline is implemented based on the Requirement Engineering Best Practices Guideline Research Framework. This framework used with mixed method. Qualitative techniques were used for interview, refinement and validation. Meanwhile, quantitative techniques were used for the survey. Target respondents for this research are IT Managers in the Malaysian Public Sector. The guideline also consists of identified requirement processes: Software Project Approval Process, Software Requirement Specification Approval Process, Software Requirement Specification Activity Diagram and Software Requirement Specification Development Procedure. The proposed best practices is developed using the mutation and the mapping process between defined Requirement Engineering Process, Software Project Success Factor and Requirement Engineering Critical Issues which were explained in Requirement Engineering Best Practices Framework. This guideline also aligns with the ICT standard. The Requirement Engineering Best Practices had been tested with a pilot test by selected IT Managers and the actual survey had been randomly distributed to IT Manager in Malaysian Public Sector. Furthermore, the guideline had been refined by ICT experts using Delphi techniques. The proposed guideline fulfilled the criteria: completeness, sufficiency, reliability and acceptance. This compliance was validated by selected ICT experts who have different backgrounds and experiences. The proposed guideline will guide IT Managers in implementing the requirement gathering process and will also improve the Software Requirement Specification Process

0021/2010 - Projeto com UML e Implementação de serviços em SOA

O gerenciamento do ciclo de vida de serviços introduz a necessidade de uma abordagem diferenciada das utilizadas para os sistemas tradicionais, devido à introdução de novos papéis arquiteturais e tarefas de desenvolvimento. Em Souza et al. [2010], foram realizadas a identificação e análise de serviços a partir de um modelo de processos de negócio, seguindo heurísticas propostas por Azevedo et al.[2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d, 2009e]. Após a análise, as próximas fases do ciclo de vida de serviços são o projeto e a implementação, as quais são o foco deste trabalho. Logo, este trabalho corresponde a uma continuação do estudo de caso realizado por Souza et al. [2010]. Todos os passos realizados foram detalhados, os serviços foram projetados e implementados

0014/2010 - Processos para Governança SOA no ponto de vista da Arquitetura de Tecnologia de Informação

Para obter os benefícios corporativos com a implantação de uma abordagem SOA não é suficiente tratar características técnicas. Atividades para implementação, va-lidação, desenvolvimento e gestão de serviços devem ser consideradas baseado em uma estratégia que esteja alinhada ao negócio. Um caso de negócio deve ser estabele-cido. Um modelo de referência e uma arquitetura da organização devem ser criados. Este trabalho propõe processos para governança SOA do ponto de vista da Arquitetura de Tecnologia de Informação