Management of Business Processes with the BPRules Language in Service Oriented Computing

Quality of Service (QoS) concerns are an important topic for the realization of business processes. While BPEL is considered the de facto standard for web service compositions, QoS requirements are not part of its specification. We present the BPRules (Business Process Rules) language for the management of business processes with respect to QoS concerns. BPRules is a rule-based, declarative language which brings novel benefits in the management of business processes, like QoS dependability for sub-orchestrations and corrective actions tailored to the specific needs of the clients. We present the main constructs of the BPRules language and how they support the flexible adaptation of the business process during runtime. Decision making is done according to the behavior of several process executions. An illustrative scenario shows how BPRules is applied to a business process

QoS-based Self-Management for Business Processes

Business processes are commonly implemented as compositions of Web Services, using the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) as an orchestration specification. Business processes do not only require an appropriate setup but also need to be monitored throughout their runtime, especially when Quality-of-service (QoS) constraints have to be met. Monitoring results may be used for the automated reconfiguration and optimization of business processes. We show how we achieve self-management based on QoS constraints within our system. The BPRules Language that we set up can be used to improve the QoS behavior of business processes by triggering appropriate management actions on the process. Also we propose a service selection strategy for the dynamic selection and replacement of services within business processes

FlexMonitorWS : a solution for monitoring Web services with a focus on QoS attributes

Orientador: Cecília Mary Fischer RubiraDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Serviços Web são usados como uma das formas de se obter uma Arquitetura Orientada a Serviços (SOA). Com aspectos interoperáveis, dinâmicos e distribuídos, tais serviços agregam valores de negócio, são unidades de software com alta coesão e são utilizados para integração entre aplicações empresariais. Em um contexto de SOA, provedores de serviços devem oferecer garantias de funcionamento de seus serviços. Esta garantia é realizada através de atributos de Quality of Service (QoS) inseridos em contratos do tipo SLA (Service Level Agreement). Atributos de QoS podem ter flutuações ou mudança de estado ao longo do tempo, dado que um serviço opera em um ambiente de alta dinamicidade e alta imprevisibilidade que são propriedades inerentes ao contexto SOA. Diante deste cenário, há uma clara necessidade de se conhecer as variações que ocorrem nos atributos de QoS. Para isso, é fundamental aplicar uma monitoração que possibilite conhecer os valores de atributos de QoS para compreender o contexto geral do ambiente que opera o serviço. Uma boa solução de monitoração deve oferecer meios flexíveis de monitorar diferentes atributos de QoS (e.g. disponibilidade, desempenho e confiabilidade), de diferentes modos de operar, considerando diferentes alvos ligados ao serviço (e.g. servidor, rede e aplicação servidora). Por meio de uma Revisão Sistemática da Literatura identificamos que as soluções encontradas não apoiam a flexibilidade na monitoração. Face a este contexto, esta dissertação propôs a FlexMonitorWS uma solução de monitoração de serviços Web e de recursos de infraestrutura de TI ligada ao serviço Web. A FlexMonitorWS adota técnicas de Linhas de Produtos de Software para criar uma família de monitores a partir da variabilidade de software existente em sistemas de monitoração de serviços Web. Três estudos de caso foram executados para avaliar a viabilidade da ferramenta, obtendo-se resultados satisfatórios na entrega de valores de atributos de QoS e na compreensão do ambiente que opera o serviço Web. Ao final, apresentamos conclusões, contribuições e direções para trabalhos futurosAbstract: Web services are used as a way of obtaining a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). With interoperable, dynamic and distributed aspects such services add business values are software units with high cohesion and are used to integrate business applications. In a SOA context, service providers must offer guarantees of the servces operations. This warranty is carried out by attributes Quality of Service (QoS) type contracts entered into SLA (Service Level Agreement). QoS attributes can have fluctuations or changes of state over time, given that a service operates in an environment of high dynamics and high unpredictability inherent in the SOA context properties. Given this scenario, there is a clear need to understand the fluctuations in the QoS attributes. Therefore, it is essential to apply a monitoring which allows to know the QoS attributes values to understand the overall context of the environment that operates the service. A good monitoring solution must offer flexible ways to monitor different QoS attributes (e.g. performance, availability and reliability) in different ways to operate, considering different targets linked to the service (e.g. server, network and server application). By analyzing existing solutions through a Systematic Literature Review identified that solutions do not support the flexibility in monitoring. Against this background, this thesis proposed a solution FlexMonitorWS monitoring of Web services and IT infrastructure resources connected to the Web services. FlexMonitorWS adopts techniques from Software Product Lines to create a monitors family from the existing variability in the Web services monitoring systems. Three case studies were performed to assess the tool feasibility, obtaining satisfactory results in delivering QoS attributes values and understanding to environment that operates the Web service. In the end, conclusions, contributions and directions for future work are presentedMestradoCiência da ComputaçãoMestre em Ciência da Computaçã