Conceptual framework for business processes compositional verification

Context

To guarantee the success of Business Process Modelling (BPM) it is necessary to check whether the activities and tasks described by Business Processes (BPs) are sound and well coordinated.

Objective

This article describes and validates a Formal Compositional Verification Approach (FCVA) that uses a Model-Checking (MC) technique to specify and verify BPs.

Method

This is performed using the Communicating Sequential Processes +Time (CSP+T) process calculus, which adds new constructions to timed Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) modelling entities for non- functional requirement specification.

Results

Using our proposal we are able to specify the BP Task Model (BPTM) associated with BPs by formalising the timed BPMN notational elements. The proposal also allows us to apply MC to BPTM verification. A real-life example of verifying a BPTM in the field of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is discussed as a practical application of FCVA.

Conclusion

This approach facilitates the verification of complex BPs from independently verified local processes, and establishes a feasible way to use process calculi to verify BPs using state-of-the-art MC tools.     

基于Web服务组合的业务流程集成

从分析现代企业面临的动态业务环境入手,提出了Web服务环境下的业务流程集成模型,阐述了基于Web服务组合进行业务流程集成的优点.在分析了Web服务组合关键技术的基础上,分别从业务流程描述语言、基于工作流的Web服务组合和语义Web服务组合三方面,综述了Web服务组合技术的研究现状,并指出了当前研究工作的不足.     

A unified framework for managing Web-based services

The emergence of Web technologies enables a variety of Web-based service applications, which can be examined from business process integration, supply chain management, and knowledge management perspectives. To categorize existing Web-based services while foreseeing potential new types, a unified view is needed to represent the structures and processes of Web-based services. This paper proposes a general framework to identify essential structures and operations of Web-based services, and then models these components. We articulate the framework with Web technologies, such as Web service and semantic Web, multi-agent and peer-to-peer, and Web information retrieval and mining. Two comprehensive examples in insurance and knowledge services are used to elaborate the use of Web-based service framework in fulfilling business processes. This study synthesizes essential structures and processes of Web-based services to build a framework for researchers and practitioners to develop Web-based services and techniques.     

Quality of service for workflows and web service processes

Workflow management systems (WfMSs) have been used to support various types of business processes for more than a decade now. In workflows or Web processes for e-commerce and Web service applications, suppliers and customers define a binding agreement or contract between the two parties, specifying quality of service (QoS) items such as products or services to be delivered, deadlines, quality of products, and cost of services. The management of QoS metrics directly impacts the success of organizations participating in e-commerce. Therefore, when services or products are created or managed using workflows or Web processes, the underlying workflow engine must accept the specifications and be able to estimate, monitor, and control the QoS rendered to customers. In this paper, we present a predictive QoS model that makes it possible to compute the quality of service for workflows automatically based on atomic task QoS attributes. We also present the implementation of our QoS model for the METEOR workflow system. We describe the components that have been changed or added, and discuss how they interact to enable the management of QoS.     

一种基于匹配策略的Web服务组合方法

现有的Web服务只能被单独调用,不能提供复杂的组合服务.文中提出了一种基于匹配策略的Web服务组合方法,该方法利用匹配关系,通过自顶向下的服务分解和自底向上的服务组合,自动将原子服务组合成满足用户要求的组合服务.通过实例说明该方法的执行过程,应用结果表明该方法减少了用户的交互操作,降低了服务成本,提高了服务效率.     

基于Pi-演算的BPEL4WS Web服务组合形式化模型

Web服务组合研究领域的一个重要的问题是如何形式化描述Web服务组合,如何验证服务组合的正确性。Web服务组合的形式化模型来可以用来检查、验证Web服务组合以保证组合的正确性。Pi-演算是一种适合于Web服务组合建模的进程代数。本文介绍了P-演算的基本语法,针对目前最主要的一种描述和执行基于工作流模式的Web服务组合的规范-Web服务商业流程执行语言（Business Process Execution Language for Web Services,BPEL4WS）,定义了Pi-演算和BPEL4WS之间的概念映射,并给出了BPEL4WS的基于P-演算的形式化模型,最后通过一个案例给出了模型验证的方法。     

类型化的Web服务组合形式化模型

Web服务组合的正确性包括动态行为的匹配性和数据类型的一致性.本文定义了一个扩充的Pi-演算类型系统,同时利用该系统对BPEL4WS Web服务组合规范建立了一个类型化的形式化模型,通过该模型能够对Web服务组合的正确性进行验证.最后通过一个案例,给出了对Web服务组合动态行为的匹配性和数据类型的一致性的验证方法.     

A conceptual framework for understanding business processes and business process modelling

It is increasingly common to describe organizations as sets of business processes that can be analysed and improved by approaches such as business process modelling. Successful business process modelling relies on an adequate view of the nature of business processes, but there is a surprising divergence of opinion about the nature of these processes. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to organize different views of business processes under four headings. It also aims at providing an integrated discussion of the different streams of thought, their strengths and limitations, within business process modelling. It argues that the multifaceted nature of business processes calls for pluralistic and multidisciplinary modelling approaches.     

A framework for computer-aided validation

This paper presents a framework for augmenting independent validation and verification (IV&V) of software systems with computer-based IV&V techniques. The framework allows an IV&V team to capture its own understanding of the application as well as the expected behavior of any proposed system for solving the underlying problem by using an executable system reference model, which uses formal assertions to specify mission- and safety-critical behaviors. The framework uses execution-based model checking to validate the correctness of the assertions and to verify the correctness and adequacy of the system under test.     

从WSBPEL程序中学习Web服务的不确定动作模型

智能规划是一种比较有前途的Web服务组合(WSC)方法.用规划进行WSC需要Web服务(WS)的动作模型,而让工程师来写它却很困难.考虑到现存WSC解决方案多用Web服务业务流程语言(WSBPEL)手工编写,可从现存方案中提取动作模型.由于WS本身有不确定性,且现存方案中蕴含对WS的语义要求,所以学习的应是体现流程语义且包含条件效果的不确定动作模型.为此,先将WSBPEL程序转成保留流程语义的标签转换系统(LTS);然后将动作模型学习技术扩展到包括条件效果的不确定规划(NDP),并从LTS中学习动作模型.实现了ARMS-WS系统,它可从WSBPEL程序中学习WS的不确定动作模型.     

A view framework for modeling and change validation of artifact-centric inter-organizational business processes

Over the past several years, more efficient approaches have been on increasing demands for designing, modeling, and implementing inter-organizational business processes. In the process collaboration across organizational boundaries, organizations still stay autonomic, which means each organization can freely modify its internal operations to meet its private goals while satisfying the mutual objectives with its partners. Recently, artifact-centric process modeling has been evidenced with higher flexibility in process modeling and execution than traditional activity-centric modeling methods. Although some efforts have been put to exploring how artifact-centric modeling facilitates the collaboration between organizations, the achievement is still far from satisfaction level, particularly in aspects of process modeling and validating. To fill in the gaps, we propose a view framework for modeling and validating the changes of inter-organizational business processes. The framework consists of an artifact-centric process meta-model, public view constructing mechanism, and private view and change validating mechanisms, which are specially designed to facilitate the participating organizations to customize their internal operations while ensuring the correctness of the collaborating processes. We also implement a software tool named Artifact-M to help organizations to automatically construct a minimal and consistent public view from their processes.     

A practical data-flow verification scheme for business processes

Data in business processes becomes more and more important. Current standard languages for process modeling like BPMN 2.0 which include the data flow reflect this. Ensuring the correctness of the data flow in processes is challenging. Model checking, i.e., verifying properties of process models, is a well-known technique to this end. An important part of model checking is the construction of the state space of the model. However, state-space explosion typically is in the way of an effective verification. We study how to overcome this problem in our context by means of reduction. More specifically, we propose a reduction on the level of the process model. To our knowledge, this is new for the data-flow analysis of processes. The core of our approach are so-called regions of the process model that are relevant for the verification of properties describing the data flow. Non-relevant regions are candidates for reduction of the process model, yielding a smaller state space. Our evaluation shows that our approach works well on industrial process models.     

The process map as an instrument to standardize processes: design and application at a financial service provider

The standardization of processes and the identification of shared business services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) are currently widely discussed. Above all in practice, however, there still is a lack of appropriate instruments to support these tasks. In this paper an approach for a process map is introduced which allows for a systematic presentation—as complete as possible—of the processes in an enterprise (division). After a consistent refinement of the process has taken place by means of aggregation/disaggregation respectively, generalization/specialization relations, it is possible to identify primarily functional similarities of the detailed sub-processes. The application of the process map at a financial service provider (FSP) highlights how these similarities can be taken as a basis to standardize processes and to identify shared services.     

A requirements engineering framework for cross-organizational ERP systems

The development of cross-organizational enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions is becoming increasingly critical to the business strategy of many networked companies. The major function of cross-organizational ERP solutions is to coordinate work in two or more organizations. However, how to align ERP application components and business requirements for coordination and cooperation is hardly known. This paper reports on the outcomes of applying a coordination theory perspective to an analysis of the ERP misalignment problem. We present a conceptual framework for analyzing coordination and cooperation requirements in inter-organizational ERP projects. The framework makes explicit the undocumented built-in assumptions for coordination and cooperation that may have significant implications for the ERP adopters and incorporates a library of existing coordination mechanisms supported by modern ERP systems. We use it to develop a proposal for how to achieve a better alignment between ERP implementations and supported business coordination processes in inter-organizational settings. We report on some early assessments of the implications of our framework for practicing requirements engineers. Both our framework and library rest on a literature survey and the first author’s experience with ERP implementation. In future empirical research, we will further validate and refine our framework.     

A symbolic framework for multi-faceted security protocol analysis

Verification of software systems, and security protocol analysis as a particular case, requires frameworks that are expressive, so as to properly capture the relevant aspects of the system and its properties, formal, so as to be provably correct, and with a computational counterpart, so as to support the (semi-) automated certification of properties. Additionally, security protocols also present hidden assumptions about the context, specific subtleties due to the nature of the problem and sources of complexity that tend to make verification incomplete. We introduce a verification framework that is expressive enough to capture a few relevant aspects of the problem, like symmetric and asymmetric cryptography and multi-session analysis, and to make assumptions explicit, e.g., the hypotheses about the initial sharing of secret keys among honest (and malicious) participants. It features a clear separation between the modeling of the protocol functioning and the properties it is expected to enforce, the former in terms of a calculus, the latter in terms of a logic. This framework is grounded on a formal theory that allows us to prove the correctness of the verification carried out within the fully fledged model. It overcomes incompleteness by performing the analysis at a symbolic level of abstraction, which, moreover, transforms into executable verification tools.     

Real-time risk monitoring in business processes: A sensor-based approach

This article proposes an approach for real-time monitoring of risks in executable business process models. The approach considers risks in all phases of the business process management lifecycle, from process design, where risks are defined on top of process models, through to process diagnosis, where risks are detected during process execution. The approach has been realized via a distributed, sensor-based architecture. At design-time, sensors are defined to specify risk conditions which when fulfilled, are a likely indicator of negative process states (faults) to eventuate. Both historical and current process execution data can be used to compose such conditions. At run-time, each sensor independently notifies a sensor manager when a risk is detected. In turn, the sensor manager interacts with the monitoring component of a business process management system to prompt the results to process administrators who may take remedial actions. The proposed architecture has been implemented on top of the YAWL system, and evaluated through performance measurements and usability tests with students. The results show that risk conditions can be computed efficiently and that the approach is perceived as useful by the participants in the tests.     

一种基于抽象模板的语义Web服务组合框架

提出一个基于抽象模板的语义Web服务组合框架,并详细分析了基于该框架的抽象模板检索、数据预处理以及模板修正的实现方法.为了提高模板检索的精确度,框架采用特征匹配和图匹配相结合的方法,实现了抽象模板和用户请求之间的相似度计算.同时利用数据预处理过程构建服务之间的依赖关系图,除去了冗余的服务,并事先验证了用户请求的可满足性.根据服务依赖关系图,框架使用启发式规划修改算法(HPAA)实现了模板的自动修正,并提供了对启发式策略的灵活配置,提高了服务组合的适应性和扩展性.最后对HPAA算法中所使用的启发式策略进行了实验,验证了算法在解决大规模问题上的适应性和可靠性.     

A formal representation for context-aware business processes

A business process is a set of activities performed in a coordinated manner within an organizational and technical environment that is aimed toward a business goal. The flexibility of a process is related to an understanding of the unexpected events that occur when people, systems and resources interact and require adjustments. Thus, business processes must be designed to respond to information about different events and their specificity. This information defines what the literature calls “context”. To broaden the perception of context in the case of a business process, this work proposes an approach to characterize the context of a business process activity in a given domain through conceptual models structured in layers. A case study was conducted to evaluate the proposal, which provided evidence of the applicability of the model.     

面向SOA架构的单通道应用程序模式的改进

随着以Web服务为基础的面向服务的体系结构的发展,如何复合分布的、自治的Web服务以构建新的企业业务应用问题已成为软件工程领域一个新的热点问题。研究探讨一种面向SOA架构的单通道应用程序设计模式,并通过Web服务复合技术对这种程序模式进行改进,通过项目应用验证其可行性。     

Formalizing WSBPEL Business Processes Using Process Algebra

Industry standards for Web Service composition, such as WSBPEL, provide the notation and additional control mechanisms for the execution of business processes in Web Service collaborations. However, these standards do not provide support for checking interesting properties related to Web Service and process behaviour. In an attempt to fill this gap, we describe a formalization of WSBPEL business processes, that adds protocol information to the specifications of interacting Web Services, and uses a process algebra to model their dynamic behaviour — thus enabling their formal analysis and the inference of relevant properties of the systems being built.