A Formal Framework For Multi-Party Business Protocols (Revision of CentER DP 2008-79)

Enterprise-class information systems based on the principles of Service Oriented Architecture comprise large numbers of long-running, highly dynamic complex end-to-end service interactions, called conversations, based on message exchanges that typically transcend several organizations and span several geographical locations. Conversations in service-based systems can be described using business protocols that are formal notations specifying the timed message exchanges among participants in a conversation from a local point of view (orchestrations) or global (choreographies). In this work we introduce a formal framework based on Deterministic Finite Automata enriched with temporal constraints to describe multi-party business protocols. We also explore the notion of multi-party business protocol soundness and show how it is possible to execute a multi-party protocol consistently in a completely distributed manner and at the same time ensure the progression of the execution (i.e. no “deadlocks”).service oriented architecture;message exchange patterns business protocols;orchestrations;choreographies;soundness

Distributed collaborative context-aware content-centric workflow management for mobile devices

Ubiquitous mobile devices have become a necessity in today’s society, opening new opportunities for interaction and collaboration between geographically distributed people. With the increased use of mobile phones, people can collaborate while on the move. Collaborators expect technologies that would enhance their teamwork and respond to their individual needs. Workflow is a widely used technology that supports collaboration and can be adapted for a variety of collaborative scenarios. Although the originally computer-based workflow technology has expanded also on mobile devices, there are still research challenges in the development of user-focused device-oriented collaborative workflows. As opposed to desktop computers, mobile devices provide a different, more personalised user experience and are carried by their owners everywhere. Mobile devices can capture user context and behave as digitalised user complements. By integrating context awareness into the workflow technology, workflow decisions can be based on local, context information and therefore, be more adapted to individual collaborators’ circumstances and expectations. Knowing the current context of collaborators and their mobile devices is useful, especially in mobile peer-topeer collaboration where the workflow process execution can be driven by devices according to the situation. In mobile collaboration, team workers share pictures, videos, or other content. Monitoring and exchanging the information on the current state of the content processed on devices can enhance the overall workflow execution. As mobile devices in peer-to-peer collaboration are not aware of a global workflow state, the content state information can be used to communicate progress among collaborators. However, there is still a lack of integrating content lifecycles in process-oriented workflows. The aim of this research was therefore to investigate how workflow technology can be adapted for mobile peer-to-peer collaboration, in particular, how the level of context awareness in mobile collaborative workflows can be increased and how the extra content lifecycle management support can be integrated. The collaborative workflow technology has been adapted for mobile peerto- peer collaboration by integrating context and content awareness. In the first place, a workflow-specific context management approach has been developed that allows defining workflow-specific context models and supports the integration of context models with collaborative workflows. Workflow process has been adapted to make decisions based on context information. Secondly, extra content management support has been added to the workflow technology. A representation for content lifecycles has been designed, and content lifecycles have been integrated with the workflow process. In this thesis, the MobWEL workflow approach is introduced. The Mob- WEL workflow approach allows defining, managing and executing mobile context-aware content-centric workflows. MobWEL is a workflow execution language that extends BPEL, using constructs from existing workflow approaches, Context4BPEL and BPELlight, and adopting elements from the BALSA workflow model. The MobWEL workflow management approach is a technology-based solution that has been designed to provide workflow management support to a specific class of mobile applications

RESTful BPEL - Erweiterung von BPEL zur Orchestrierung von RESTful Web Services

Die Web Service Business Process Execution Language ist eine Sprache zur Modellierung von Geschäftsprozessen, die es ermöglicht Web Services zu orchestrieren, die durch eine WSDL-Schnittstelle definiert sind. REST, die Kurzform von „REpresentational State Transfer“, ist ein Architekturstil für Webanwendungen, der bei Einhaltung unter anderem bessere Skalierbarkeit, einfachere System-Architektur und bessere Erweiterbarkeit verspricht. In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht, welche Möglichkeiten bestehen, BPEL zur Orchestrierung von RESTful Web Services zu verwenden, oder inwiefern BPEL zu diesem Zweck erweitert werden muss. Dazu werden verschiedene Konzepte beschrieben, analysiert und bewertet. Anschließend wird ein Konzept entworfen und implementiert, das alle notwendigen Anfor- derungen erfüllt, BPEL zur Orchestrierung von RESTful Web Services zu nutzen

Introduction to Devices Orchestration in Internet of Things Using SBPMN

In this research we try to provide an architecture that allows the orchestration of objects that are part of the Internet of things creating business processes. Internet of Things is still in full development; this implies that there is a lack of standards for its proper implementation. Among these gaps is for example the technology used to allow objects to connect to the network, since there are several options but none seems to end imposed that is why this work try to provide architecture that imposes an alternative solution to this problem. However, it is difficult to provide a common solution to all the objects used in everyday life because of its great diversity, it requires us to classify them and thus create an appropriate architecture for each of the types These architectures are designed to facilitate the devices orchestration in a similar way as is currently done with web services enabling business process modeling

Standards Assessment in Disruptive Innovation: A Software Prototype for Cloud Computing

Standards impact interoperability, portability, and security of products or services. Standards con- tribute to open and flexible systems that, in turn, are a catalyst for the uptake of new technologies. The assessment of standards in disruptive innovation is, however, challenged by uncertainty over markets, technology evolution, and organizational change. The dynamics of technology progression, further- more, contribute to high assessment efforts, leading to situations where up-to-date information on standards is effectively missing. In this paper, we build upon previous work on a model and method to support assessment of standards in disruptive innovation. We summarize the methods potentials for reducing standards assessment efforts and automation. Thereupon, we propose a conceptual software architecture for standards assessment platforms and instantiate the platform for the domain of cloud computing. Our discussion of the Cloud Standards Assessment Platform will present the user experi- ence and reflect the realizability of automation potentials in standards assessment. We give an outlook on future work and platform adoption to conclude this paper

Abschlussbericht des Verbundprojekts Tools4BPEL

Unternehmensübergreifende Geschäftsprozesse werden zunehmend nach dem Paradigma der Services organisiert. Dabei stellen sich Fragen nach der Komponierbarkeit, Fehlerbehandlung, sowie der Rücksetzbarkeit (Kompensation) im Fehlerfall. In diesem Vorhaben werden Methoden und Werkzeuge zum Umgang mit solchen Fragen entwickelt und am Beispiel der Geschäftsprozess-Modellierungssprache BPEL und im Modellierungswerkzeug der Firma MEGA international erprobt. Es wurde zum einen der Übersetzer BPEL2oWFN entwickelt, der anhand einer Petrinetzsemantik für BPEL einen BPEL-Prozess in ein (offenes) Petrinetz transformiert. Zum anderen wurden Korrektheitskriterien (wie Bedienbarkeit und Verhaltenskompatibilität) für Services erarbeitet, Algorithmen zu ihrer Überprüfung entworfen und in Fiona implementiert. Die Algorithmen sind Petrinetz-basiert. Damit spielen Übersetzung und Analyse eng zusammen und ein vorhandener BPEL-Prozess kann auf bspw. Bedienbarkeit hin untersucht werden. In diesem Vorhaben wurden die Modellierungssprache BPEL4Chor, Choreographie-Erweiterungen für BPMN entwickelt, sowie die Transformation von BPMN nach BPEL angepasst, um den Weg von BPMN nach BPEL4Chor zu unterstützen. Weiterhin wurden Konzepte entwickelt, wie sich partner-übergreifende Fehlerbehandlung, Rücksetzbarkeit, sowie die Autonomie der Partner mittels BPEL4Chor darstellen lassen. BPEL4Chor kann als Standardsprache zur Spezifikation von Protokollen, die zwischen mehreren Partnern ablaufen, verwendet werden. Durch seine enge Verbindung mit BPEL kann BPEL4Chor sehr gut als Startpunkt für eine Webservice-Lösung verwendet werden

A METHOD TO CLASSIFY STANDARDS IN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES: THE CASE OF CLOUD COMPUTING

Standards are an important part of any product or service as they impact many aspects such as interoperability, portability, and security. Hence, they constitute the cornerstone of any distributed, open, and flexible system “ even more so for emerging technologies such as cloud computing as the rate of their adoption can heavily depend on it. Often there is a plethora of standards available and “ despite their importance “ accurate information that can be used to guide the selection of standards is missing. Selecting the wrong standards can increase cost, reduce uptake, profitability, or lead to a product or service being stuck in a niche. Selecting the right standards can result in as much as the exact opposite. Despite numerous efforts to create classifications of standards that should provide guidance for the selection of standards, there is a lack of conceptualization and methods on how to build standards classifications. In this paper, we provide a conceptualization of technology standards, which serves as the basis for our method to classify standards in emerging technologies (C-SET). The method provides a procedure to classify standards based on a conceptual data model and a stakeholder model. In doing so, C-SET provides the basis to structure the information that is required for an informed selection of standards in emerging technologies. In this paper, we illustrate C-SET referring to cloud computing as an example of an emerging technology

A resource-oriented architecture for business process systems

Background: The REpresentational State Transfer (REST) design principles treat all concepts in the world as link-connected resources, and support ROA (Resource-Oriented Architecture) for the Web applications. REST and ROA are responsible for the adaptability achieved in the Web. Some design approaches of Web-based business process systems recently evolved towards RESTful to inherit adaptability. However, none of the approaches can improve the adaptability of the produced systems. Aims: Propose a systematic approach for design and execution of Web-based business processes to improve adaptability of the produced systems. Methods: This research followed an empirical research methodology, which evaluates research solutions with real-world cases. On one hand, the research solution was derived by 1) tailoring the REST principles towards business process systems; 2) proposing REST annotations on existing business process modelling; 3) mapping the concepts of business process to HTTP/URI specifications; and 4) designing a format for process context information. On the other hand, the research solution was evaluated through three real-world case studies. Two of the case studies conducted comparative analysis in terms of adaptability of the systems produced by the proposed approach and two alternatives, namely, SOA and MEST (MESsage Transfer). The analysis is based on metrics, including LOC difference, change locality, coupling and cohesion, and an analysis framework called BASE. Results: The research solution is ROA4BP, which includes 1) an architecting approach for design and implementation of Web-based business processes to provide a development guideline; 2) a set of REST-related annotations on existing process modelling to ensure the compatibility with existing techniques; 3) A systematic mapping between business process and HTTP/URI specifications to utilize the advanced mechanisms provided by the Web infrastructure; and 4) a communication format to exchange structured process context information during runtime among process participants. A modelling tool, a programming API and a runtime engine were implemented to support the approach and simplify the implementation of case studies. The case studies demonstrated that ROA4BP can produce more adaptable business process systems compared to the other two alternatives. Conclusion: ROA4BP can help to design and execute RESTful business process systems with better adaptability at design-time and runtime