A Decision Framework for Decentralized Control of Distributed Processes

A typical example of a distributed process is trade finance where data and documents are transferred between multiple companies including importers, exporters, carriers, and banks. Blockchain is seen as a potential decentralized technology that can be used to automate such processes. However, there are also other competing technologies such as managed file transfers, messaging, and WebAPIs that may also be suitable for automating similar distributed processes. In this chapter, a decision framework is proposed to assist the solution architect in deciding the technology best suited to support decentralized control of a distributed business process where there are multiple companies involved. The framework takes as input the different areas of concern such as data, processing, governance, technical, and the pros and cons of the technologies in addressing these areas of concerns and provides a method to analyze and highlight the best technology for any process in question. Two example processes, trade finance and price distribution, are used to show the application of the framework.

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Process Landscaping: Modelling Distributed Processes and Proving Properties of Distributed Process Models

Unifying Petri Nets - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ◽

10.1007/3-540-45541-8_5 ◽

2001 ◽

pp. 103-125 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Volker Gruhn ◽

Ursula Wellen

Keyword(s):

Process Models ◽

Distributed Processes ◽

Distributed Process

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Representations of Artifact-Centric Business Processes

International Journal of Productivity Management and Assessment Technologies ◽

10.4018/ijpmat.2012070103 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 45-61

Author(s):

Giorgio Bruno

Keyword(s):

Business Process ◽

Business Processes ◽

Life Cycles ◽

Process Models ◽

Business Process Models ◽

Structure Dynamics ◽

Pros And Cons ◽

Business Entities

Current approaches to the representation of business processes can be divided into two major categories, referred to as activity-centric and artifact-centric. The former underline the tasks as the basic units of work, and the latter stress the importance of the life cycles of the artifacts (i.e., the business entities). This paper analyzes the major issues that characterize the artifact-centric approach, i.e., structure, dynamics and coordination. These issues can be dealt with in various ways, ranging from separate models to holistic ones. The pros and cons of separate models and compact ones are analyzed on the basis of how they cope with three relevant aspects, i.e., aggregation, synchronization and matching. A number of motivating examples are presented along with the notation used to define them. This notation, named ARTS (ARtifacts and TAsks), considers both artifacts and tasks as first-class citizens of business process models.

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Semantic Annotation of Process Models for Facilitating Process Knowledge Management

International Journal of Information System Modeling and Design ◽

10.4018/jismd.2010070103 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 45-67 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Yun Lin ◽

John Krogstie

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Management ◽

Information Systems ◽

Business Process ◽

Business Processes ◽

Semantic Annotation ◽

Empirical Evaluation ◽

Process Models ◽

Process Knowledge ◽

Business Process Models ◽

Distributed Process

Enterprise/business process models that represent knowledge of business processes are generally designed for particular applications in a range of different enterprises. It is a considerable challenge to manage the knowledge of processes that are distributed throughout many different information systems, due to the heterogeneity of the process models used. In this paper, the authors present a framework for semantic annotation that tackles the problem of the heterogeneity of distributed process models to facilitate management of process knowledge. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by means of exemplar studies, and a comprehensive empirical evaluation is used to validate the authors’ approach.

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Flexible Online Learning - Onsite!

Flexible Learning in an Information Society ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-325-8.ch010 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 110-115

Author(s):

Claus Witfelt

Keyword(s):

Online Learning ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Further Education ◽

University Teaching ◽

The Internet ◽

Time And Space ◽

Flexible Learning ◽

Learning Contexts ◽

Distributed Processes ◽

Pros And Cons

Flexible learning is a term usually connected with IT and the dimensions time and space, for instance when using CSCL-systems (e.g., Blackboard, Sitescape, or FirstClass) to combine onsite learning with online learning in further education, typically with few, intensive onsite seminars separated by online periods where the students work, communicate, and learn via the Internet. This chapter takes a different approach to flexible learning and how technologies from distributed, flexible learning can be used in everyday university teaching and learning—onsite learning. Onsite learning is characterized not by virtual and distributed processes, but actual presence of the students. In the current study, we have identified a number of scenarios for these learning contexts and tried a number of systems. In the chapter we will discuss the problems, the pros and cons of the various scenarios, and in short describe some of the technologies we have worked with.

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Electrochemical hydrogen compression and purification versus competing technologies: Part I. Pros and cons

Chinese Journal of Catalysis ◽

10.1016/s1872-2067(19)63404-2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 41 (5) ◽

pp. 756-769 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Maha Rhandi ◽

Marine Trégaro ◽

Florence Druart ◽

Jonathan Deseure ◽

Marian Chatenet

Keyword(s):

Pros And Cons ◽

Hydrogen Compression ◽

Competing Technologies

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Coordinating large distributed relational process structures

Software & Systems Modeling ◽

10.1007/s10270-020-00835-0 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sebastian Steinau ◽

Kevin Andrews ◽

Manfred Reichert

Keyword(s):

Business Process ◽

Business Process Management ◽

Process Management ◽

Decentralized Coordination ◽

Main Challenge ◽

Coordination Process ◽

Management Paradigms ◽

Distributed Process ◽

Process Structure ◽

Relational Process

Abstract Representing a business process as a collaboration of interacting processes has become feasible with the emergence of data-centric business process management paradigms. Usually, these interacting processes have relations and, thereby, form a complex relational process structure. The interactions of processes within this relational process structure need to be coordinated to arrive at a meaningful overall business goal. However, relational process structures may become arbitrarily large. With the use of cloud technology, they may additionally be distributed over multiple nodes, allowing for scalability. Coordination processes have been proposed to coordinate relational process structures, where processes may have one-to-many and many-to-many relations at run-time. This paper shows how multiple coordination processes can be used in a decentralized fashion to more efficiently coordinate large, distributed process structures. The main challenge of using multiple coordination processes is to effectively realize the coordination responsibility of each coordination process. Key components of the solution are the subsidiary principle and the hierarchy of the relational process structure. Finally, an implementation of the coordination process concept based on microservices was developed, which allows for fast and concurrent enactment of multiple, decentralized coordination processes in large, distributed process structures.

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