A contract-based workflow execution framework for realizing artifact-centric business processes in a dynamic and collaborative environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-449
Author(s):  
Kan Ngamakeur ◽  
Sira Yongchareon

Purpose The paper aims to study realization requirements for the flexible enactment of artifact-centric business processes in a dynamic, collaborative environment and to develop a workflow execution framework that can effectively address those requirements. Design/methodology/approach This study proposed a framework and contract-based, event-driven architecture design and implementation that can directly realize collaborative artifact-centric business processes in service-oriented architecture (SOA) without any model conversion. Findings The results show that the approach is feasible in presenting several key benefits over the use of existing workflow systems to run artifact-centric processes. Originality/value Most of the existing approaches require an artifact-centric model to be transformed into executable workflow languages to run on existing workflow management systems. This study argues that the model conversion can incur losses of information and affect traceability and monitoring ability of workflows, especially in an SOA where a workflow can span across multiple inter-business entities.

Author(s):  
Joonsoo Bae ◽  
Ling Liu ◽  
James Caverlee ◽  
Liang-Jie Zhang ◽  
Hyerim Bae

Business processes continue to play an important role in today’s service-oriented enterprise computing systems. Mining, discovering, and integrating process-oriented services has attracted growing attention in the recent years. This chapter presents a quantitative approach to modeling and capturing the similarity and dissimilarity between different process designs. The authors derive the similarity measures by analyzing the process dependency graphs of the participating workflow processes. They first convert each process dependency graph into a normalized process matrix. Then they calculate the metric space distance between the normalized matrices. This distance measure can be used as a quantitative and qualitative tool in process mining, process merging, and process clustering, and ultimately it can reduce or minimize the costs involved in design, analysis, and evolution of workflow systems.


2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milorad Pantelija Stevic ◽  
Branko Milosavljevic ◽  
Branko Rade Perisic

Purpose – Current e-learning platforms are based on relational database management systems (RDBMS) and are well suited for handling structured data. However, it is expected from e-learning solutions to efficiently handle unstructured data as well. The purpose of this paper is to show an alternative to current solutions for unstructured data management. Design/methodology/approach – Current repository-based solution for file management was compared to MongoDB architecture according to their functionalities and characteristics. This included several categories: data integrity, hardware acquisition, processing files, availability, handling concurrent users, partition tolerance, disaster recovery, backup policies and scalability. Findings – This paper shows that it is possible to improve e-learning platform capabilities by implementing a hybrid database architecture that incorporates RDBMS for handling structured data and MongoDB database system for handling unstructured data. Research limitations/implications – The study shows an acceptable adoption of MongoDB inside a service-oriented architecture (SOA) for enhancing e-learning solutions. Practical implications – This research enables an efficient file handling not only for e-learning systems, but also for any system where file handling is needed. Originality/value – It is expected that future single/joint e-learning initiatives will need to manage huge amount of files and they will require effective file handling solution. The new architecture solution for file handling is offered in this paper: it is different from current solutions because it is less expensive, more efficient, more flexible and requires less administrative and development effort for building and maintaining.


Author(s):  
Tony Clark ◽  
Balbir S. Barn ◽  
Vinay Kulkarni

Component-based approaches generalize basic object-oriented implementations by allowing large collections of objects to be grouped together and externalized in terms of public interfaces. A typical component-based system will include a large number of interacting components. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) organizes a system in terms of components that communicate via services. Components publish services that they implement as business processes. Consequently, a change to a single component can have a ripple effect on the service-driven system. Component reconfiguration is motivated by the need to evolve the component architecture and can take a number of forms. The authors define a dynamic architecture as one that supports changing the behavior and topology of existing components without stopping, updating, and redeploying the system. This chapter addresses the problem of dynamic reconfiguration of component-based architectures. It proposes a reification approach that represents key features of a language in data, so that a system can reason and dynamically modify aspects of it. The approach is described in terms of a new language called µLEAP and validated by implementing a simple case study.


Author(s):  
Vili Podgorelec ◽  
Boštjan Grašič

In this chapter, a Semantic Web services-based knowledge management framework that enables holistic knowledge management in organizations is presented. As the economy is becoming one single global marketplace, where the best offer wins, organizations have to search for competitive advantage within themselves. With the growing awareness that key potentials of an organization lie within its people and their knowledge, efficient knowledge management is becoming one of key focuses in organizational activities. The proposed knowledge management framework is based on Semantic Web technologies and service-oriented architecture, supporting the operational business processes as well as knowledge-based management of services in service-oriented architecture.


Author(s):  
Dinesh Sharma ◽  
Devendra Kumar Mishra

Present is the era of fast processing industries or organization gives more emphasis for planning of business processes. This planning may differ from industry to industry. Service oriented architecture provides extensible and simple architecture for industry problem solutions. Web services are a standardized way for developing interoperable applications. Web services use open standards and protocols like http, xml and soap. This chapter provides a role of enterprise service bus in building web services.


Author(s):  
Michael Decker

Workflow management systems (WfMS) are a special class of information systems (IS) which support the automated enactment of business processes. Meanwhile there are WfMS which allow the execution of tasks using mobile computers like PDA with the ability of wireless data transmission. However, the employment of workflow systems as well as mobile technologies comes along with special security challenges. One way to tackle these challenges is the employment of location-aware access control to enforce rules that describe from which locations a user is allowed to perform which activities. The data model behind access control in termed Access Control Model (ACM). There are special ACM for mobile information systems as well as for WfMS, but no one that addresses mobile as well as workflow specific aspects. In the article we therefore discuss the specific constraints such a model should be able to express and introduce an appropriate ACM. A special focus is on location constraints for individual workflow instances.


Author(s):  
Georgousopoulos Christos ◽  
Xenia Ziouvelou ◽  
Gregory Yovanof ◽  
Antonis Ramfos

Since the early 1980s, Open Source Software (OSS) has gained a strong interest and an increased acceptance in the software industry that has to date initiated a “paradigm shift” (O’Reilly, 2004). The Open Source paradigm has introduced wholly new means of software development and distribution, creating a significant impact on the evolution of numerous business processes. In this chapter we examine the impact of the open source paradigm in the e-Procurement evolution and identify a trend towards Open Source e-Procurement Application Frameworks (AFs) which enable the development of tailored e-Procurement Solutions. Anchored in this notion, we present an Open-Source e-Procurement AF with a two-phase generation procedure. The innovative aspect of the proposed model relates to the combination of the Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach with the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm for enabling the cost-effective production of e-Procurement Solutions by facilitating integration, interoperability, easy maintenance, and management of possible changes in the European e-Procurement environment. The assessment process of the proposed AF and its resulting e-Procurement Solutions occurs in the context of G2B in the Western-Balkan European region. Our evaluation yields positive results and further enhancing opportunities for the proposed Open Source e-Procurement AF and its resulting e-Procurement Solutions.


Author(s):  
Bhuvan Unhelkar ◽  
Abbass Ghanbary ◽  
Houman Younessi

This chapter discusses the role of information system architectures in Collaborate Business Process Engineering (CBPE). Thus, in this chapter, there is an extension of the discussion on Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) from chapters 2 and 4, and its importance and relevance to CBPE. The SOA based architecture is extended and applied in a collaborative business environment. The technical platform of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides an ideal mechanism to start building collaborative business processes, as it facilitates technical collaboration of different environments - as discussed in this chapter.


Author(s):  
Olga Levina ◽  
Vladimir Stantchev

E-Business research and practice can be situated on following multiple levels: applications, technological issues, support and implementation (Ngai and Wat 2002). Here we consider technological components for realizing business processes and discuss their foundation architecture for technological enabling. The article provides an introduction to the terms, techniques and realization issues for eventdriven and service-oriented architectures. We begin with a definition of terms and propose a reference architecture for an event-driven service-oriented architecture (EDSOA). Possible applications in the area of E-Business and solution guidelines are considered in the second part of the article. Service-oriented Architectures (SOA) have gained momentum since their introduction in the last years. Seen as an approach to integrate heterogeneous applications within an enterprise architecture they are also used to design flexible and adaptable business processes. An SOA is designed as a distributed system architecture providing a good integration possibility of already existing application systems. Furthermore, SOA is mostly suitable for complex and large system landscapes.


Author(s):  
Bhuvan Unhelkar ◽  
Amit Tiwary ◽  
Abbass Ghanbary

Web Services (WS) technologies create the potential for an organization to collaborate with partners and customers by enabling its software applications to transact over the Internet. This collaboration is achieved by carefully incorporating Web Services in the organization’s software applications, resulting in comprehensive Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the enterprise. This incorporation of WS-enabled applications and components in the organization’s overall enterprise architecture requires understanding of the service at three interrelated yet distinct layers: policies, activities, and standards. This chapter describes how the existing business processes of an organization are transitioned in to collaborative business processes that would result in a Collaborative Web- Based System (CWBS). The ideas presented in this chapter have been validated through an action-research carried out by the authors in a large energy supplier organization in Melbourne, Australia.


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