ON THE CHALLENGE OF A SEMI-AUTOMATIC TRANSFORMATION PROCESS IN MODEL DRIVEN ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Recently, Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approaches have been proposed for supporting the development, maintenance and evolution of software systems. Model driven architecture (MDA) from OMG (Object Management Group), “Software Factories” from Microsoft and the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF) from IBM are among the most representative MDE approaches. Nowadays, it is well recognized that model transformations are at the heart of these approaches and represent as a consequence one of the most important operations in MDE. However, despite the multitude of model transformation languages proposals emerging from university and industry, these transformations are often created manually. In this paper we present in the first part our previous works towards automation of the transformation process in the context of MDA. It consists on an extended architecture which introduces mapping and matching as first class entities in the transformation process, represented by models and metamodels. Our architecture is enforced by a methodology which details the different steps leading to a semi-automatic transformation process. In the second part, we propose the illustration of the architecture and methodology to the main case of transforming a PIM into PSM

A heuristic-based approach to code-smell detection

Encapsulation and data hiding are central tenets of the object oriented paradigm. Deciding what data and behaviour to form into a class and where to draw the line between its public and private details can make the difference between a class that is an understandable, flexible and reusable abstraction and one which is not. This decision is a difficult one and may easily result in poor encapsulation which can then have serious implications for a number of system qualities. It is often hard to identify such encapsulation problems within large software systems until they cause a maintenance problem (which is usually too late) and attempting to perform such analysis manually can also be tedious and error prone. Two of the common encapsulation problems that can arise as a consequence of this decomposition process are data classes and god classes. Typically, these two problems occur together – data classes are lacking in functionality that has typically been sucked into an over-complicated and domineering god class. This paper describes the architecture of a tool which automatically detects data and god classes that has been developed as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The technique has been evaluated in a controlled study on two large open source systems which compare the tool results to similar work by Marinescu, who employs a metrics-based approach to detecting such features. The study provides some valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the two approache

A Constrained Object Model for Configuration Based Workflow Composition

Automatic or assisted workflow composition is a field of intense research for applications to the world wide web or to business process modeling. Workflow composition is traditionally addressed in various ways, generally via theorem proving techniques. Recent research observed that building a composite workflow bears strong relationships with finite model search, and that some workflow languages can be defined as constrained object metamodels . This lead to consider the viability of applying configuration techniques to this problem, which was proven feasible. Constrained based configuration expects a constrained object model as input. The purpose of this document is to formally specify the constrained object model involved in ongoing experiments and research using the Z specification language.Comment: This is an extended version of the article published at BPM'05, Third International Conference on Business Process Management, Nancy Franc

Evolving models in Model-Driven Engineering : State-of-the-art and future challenges

The artefacts used in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) evolve as a matter of course: models are modified and updated as part of the engineering process; metamodels change as a result of domain analysis and standardisation efforts; and the operations applied to models change as engineering requirements change. MDE artefacts are inter-related, and simultaneously constrain each other, making evolution a challenge to manage. We discuss some of the key problems of evolution in MDE, summarise the key state-of-the-art, and look forward to new challenges in research in this area

Composing Multiple Variability Artifacts to Assemble Coherent Workflows

International audienceThe development of scientific workflows is evolving towards the system- atic use of service oriented architectures, enabling the composition of dedicated and highly parameterized software services into processing pipelines. Building consistent workflows then becomes a cumbersome and error-prone activity as users cannot man- age such large scale variability. This paper presents a rigorous and tooled approach in which techniques from Software Product Line (SPL) engineering are reused and ex- tended to manage variability in service and workflow descriptions. Composition can be facilitated while ensuring consistency. Services are organized in a rich catalog which is organized as a SPL and structured according to the common and variable concerns captured for all services. By relying on sound merging techniques on the feature mod- els that make up the catalog, reasoning about the compatibility between connected services is made possible. Moreover, an entire workflow is then seen as a multiple SPL (i.e., a composition of several SPLs). When services are configured within, the prop- agation of variability choices is then automated with appropriate techniques and the user is assisted in obtaining a consistent workflow. The approach proposed is com- pletely supported by a combination of dedicated tools and languages. Illustrations and experimental validations are provided using medical imaging pipelines, which are rep- resentative of current scientific workflows in many domains

Automatic generation of data merging program codes.

Data merging is an essential part of ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) processes to build a data warehouse system. To avoid rewheeling merging techniques, we propose a Data Merging Meta-model (DMM) and its transformation into executable program codes in the manner of model driven engineering. DMM allows defining relationships of different model entities and their merging types in conceptual level. Our formalized transformation described using ATL (ATLAS Transformation Language) enables automatic generation of PL/SQL packages to execute data merging in commercial ETL tools. With this approach data warehouse engineers can be relieved from the burden of repetitive complex script coding and the pain of maintaining consistency of design and implementation

Semantic Model Alignment for Business Process Integration

Business process models describe an enterprise’s way of conducting business and in this form the basis for shaping the organization and engineering the appropriate supporting or even enabling IT. Thereby, a major task in working with models is their analysis and comparison for the purpose of aligning them. As models can differ semantically not only concerning the modeling languages used, but even more so in the way in which the natural language for labeling the model elements has been applied, the correct identification of the intended meaning of a legacy model is a non-trivial task that thus far has only been solved by humans. In particular at the time of reorganizations, the set-up of B2B-collaborations or mergers and acquisitions the semantic analysis of models of different origin that need to be consolidated is a manual effort that is not only tedious and error-prone but also time consuming and costly and often even repetitive. For facilitating automation of this task by means of IT, in this thesis the new method of Semantic Model Alignment is presented. Its application enables to extract and formalize the semantics of models for relating them based on the modeling language used and determining similarities based on the natural language used in model element labels. The resulting alignment supports model-based semantic business process integration. The research conducted is based on a design-science oriented approach and the method developed has been created together with all its enabling artifacts. These results have been published as the research progressed and are presented here in this thesis based on a selection of peer reviewed publications comprehensively describing the various aspects