Pattern-based software architecture for service-oriented software systems

Service-oriented architecture is a recent conceptual framework for service-oriented software platforms. Architectures are of great importance for the evolution of software systems. We present a modelling and transformation technique for service-centric distributed software systems. Architectural configurations, expressed through hierarchical architectural patterns, form the core of a specification and transformation technique. Patterns on different levels of abstraction form transformation invariants that structure and constrain the transformation process. We explore the role that patterns can play in architecture transformations in terms of functional properties, but also non-functional quality aspects

Coloured petrinet for flexible business workflow modelling

Etrinet diagrams are a recognized form of modelling real time systems and have been included in the list of UML techniques for modelling the dynamic aspects of Object Oriented Systems. In this paper, we explain how workflow techniques can be used for developing models for larger independent systems. These chunks or independent systems which are part of the large systems are expressed through the use of worklets. This can then be used as the basis of modelling systems where timeliness is of importance. However, this requires extending workflow ideas to incorporate flexibility, handling of exceptions and adaptability. Extensions of the petrinet diagrams are then proposed for expressing the models obtained from such workflow techniques

A Taxonomy of Workflow Management Systems for Grid Computing

With the advent of Grid and application technologies, scientists and engineers are building more and more complex applications to manage and process large data sets, and execute scientific experiments on distributed resources. Such application scenarios require means for composing and executing complex workflows. Therefore, many efforts have been made towards the development of workflow management systems for Grid computing. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy that characterizes and classifies various approaches for building and executing workflows on Grids. We also survey several representative Grid workflow systems developed by various projects world-wide to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the taxonomy. The taxonomy not only highlights the design and engineering similarities and differences of state-of-the-art in Grid workflow systems, but also identifies the areas that need further research.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure

Compliance flow: an intelligent workflow management system to support engineering processes

This work is about extending the scope of current workflow management systems to support engineering processes. On the one hand engineering processes are relatively dynamic, and on the other their specification and performance are constrained by industry standards and guidelines for the sake of product acceptability, such as IEC 61508 for safety and ISO 9001 for quality. A number of technologies have been proposed to increase the adaptability of current workflow systems to deal with dynamic situations. A primary concern is how to support open-ended processes that cannot be completely specified in detail prior to their execution. A survey of adaptive workflow systems is given and the enabling technologies are discussed. Engineering processes are studied and their characteristics are identified and discussed. Current workflow systems have been successfully used in managing "administrative" processes for some time, but they lack the flexibility to support dynamic, unpredictable, collaborative, and highly interdependent engineering processes. [Continues.

Management of dynamic and adaptive workflow business processes

Collaborative and dynamic workflow management systems in logistic companies require strong information systems and computer support. Business processes in such industries generally compose of several parts, a structured operational part and an unstructured operational part, or they could be composed of semistructured parts with some given and some unknown details. Unpredictable situations may occur as a result of changes in decisions made by the management. The inability to deal with various changes greatly limits the applicability of workflow systems in real industrial and commercial operations. This paper deals with adaptation management of collaborative workflow changes in such consortia and proposes architecture for implementation of these changes through the process of component integration and synchronization where by existing workflow systems adapt to the changes. This paper describes conceptual framework required for prototype implementation resulting in new collaborative workflow adaptation

Hybrid process technologies in the financial sector

Abstract. Danish mortgage credit institutes deal with highly variable and knowledge-intensive processes. At the same time these processes are required to be strictly conformant to current regulations and laws. In addition different divisions of the business are interested in different views on the same process: whereas the IT department implementing the processes would like a complete view that shows the underlying business rules and supports all variants, the end users are only in-terested in a local view that (1) shows only the aspects of the process that they are responsible for and (2) only shows the variants of the process that are rel-evant to them. This paper reports on a project we undertook with such a credit institute where we investigated and addressed these issues by providing a hybrid solution, allowing processes to be modelled using our constraint-based modelling tools, but also supporting flow-based views of both the entire process and specific variants

A novel workflow management system for handling dynamic process adaptation and compliance

Modern enterprise organisations rely on dynamic processes. Generally these processes cannot be modelled once and executed repeatedly without change. Enterprise processes may evolve unpredictably according to situations that cannot always be prescribed. However, no mechanism exists to ensure an updated process does not violate any compliance requirements. Typical workflow processes may follow a process definition and execute several thousand instances using a workflow engine without any changes. This is suitable for routine business processes. However, when business processes need flexibility, adaptive features are needed. Updating processes may violate compliance requirements so automatic verification of compliance checking is necessary. The research work presented in this Thesis investigates the problem of current workflow technology in defining, managing and ensuring the specification and execution of business processes that are dynamic in nature, combined with policy standards throughout the process lifycle. The findings from the literature review and the system requirements are used to design the proposed system architecture. Since a two-tier reference process model is not sufficient as a basis for the reference model for an adaptive and compliance workflow management system, a three-tier process model is proposed. The major components of the architecture consist of process models, business rules and plugin modules. This architecture exhibits the concept of user adaptation with structural checks and dynamic adaptation with data-driven checks. A research prototype - Adaptive and Compliance Workflow Management System (ACWfMS) - was developed based on the proposed system architecture to implement core services of the system for testing and evaluation purposes. The ACWfMS enables the development of a workflow management tool to create or update the process models. It automatically validates compliance requirements and, in the case of violations, visual feedback is presented to the user. In addition, the architecture facilitates process migration to manage specific instances with modified definitions. A case study based on the postgraduate research process domain is discussed