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 data quality management framework to support delivery and consultancy of CRM platforms

CRM platforms heavily depend on high-quality data, where poor-quality data can negatively influence its adoption. Additionally, these platforms are increasingly interconnected and complex to meet growing needs of customers. Hence, delivery and consultancy of CRM platforms becomes highly complex. In this study, we propose a CRM data quality management framework that supports CRM delivery and consultancy firms to improve data quality management practices within their projects. The framework should also improve data quality within CRM solutions for their clients. We extract best practices for CRM data quality management by means of a literature study on data quality definition and measurement, data quality challenges, and data quality management methods. In a case study at an IT consultancy company, we investigate how CRM delivery and consultancy projects can benefit from the incorporation of data quality management practices. The design of the framework is validated by means of confirmatory focus groups and a questionnaire. The results translate into a framework that provides a high-level overview of data quality management practices incorporated in CRM delivery and consultancy projects. It includes the following components: Client profiling, project definition, preparation, migration/integration, data quality definition, assessment, and improvement

When Parameterized Model Driven Development Supports Aspect Based SOA

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) are widely used by companies to gain flexibility. Web services are the fitted technical solution used to support SOA by providing interoperability and loose coupling. Basic Web services are being assembled to composite Web services in order to directly support business processes. However, there is much to be done to obtain a genuine flawless Web service, and current market implementations do not provide adaptable Web service behavior depending on the service contract. This paper proposes two different approaches to increase adaptability of Web services and SOA. The first approach is based on Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) as a new design solution for Web services. The authors have implemented an infrastructure to enrich services with aspects and to dynamically reroute messages according to changes, without redeployment. The second approach combines Model Driven Development (MDD) and Context-Awareness to promote reuse and adaptability of Web services behavior depending on the service context. Parameterized transformation techniques are proposed to bind context with business logic implemented by a service. The aim is to merge the two approaches to abstract and reduce the technical complexity of aspect based service solution

Technologies for Collaborative Business Processes and Management of Enterprise Information Systems: Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Model-Driven Enterprise Information Systems (MDEIS 2007)

This volume contains the proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Model-Driven Enterprise Information Systems (MDEIS) held in conjunction with the 9th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS) in Madeira, Portugal. The main aim of this workshop is to serve as a forum for researchers and practitioners to meet and to share expertise in Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) and its application to Enterprise Information Systems. The potential benefits of MDA are reduction on development costs, improvement of software quality, reduction of maintenance costs and the support for controlled evolution of IT systems. MDA has been applied in many application areas, such as real-time and embedded systems, and telecommunication systems, and, more recently, to the development and integration of enterprise information systems. The goal of this workshop is to bring together people working on MDA techniques and tools, and applying them on enterprise information systems, so that they can exchange their experience with the use of MDA, create new ideas, evaluate and improve MDA and spread its use. This year, submissions regarding the combined application of MDA and emerging technologies such as the Semantic Web, Semantic Web Services, ontologies and knowledge representation, were greatly encouraged. We have received 16 paper submissions, from which 9 papers have been accepted for publication in these proceedings and a 30-minutes oral presentation during the workshop. All selected papers are of high quality, and this could only be possible due to the professionalism of our authors, reviewers and program committee members. The selected papers are very good illustrations of different topics that are currently under intense research around Model-Driven Architecture: - MDA and the Semantic Web; - Transformations in MDA; - Aspect-Oriented Approach and MDA, Process Support Software and MDA; - Applications of MDA