Abstract: Business processes represent a fundamental asset of a company as they describe the core knowledge underlying its competitive advantage. Tools for modeling and analysis of business processes have to cope with the increasing complexity of these processes. A view on a process intends to abstract from details and make complex processes easier to understand. A process view results from specific transformations applied to a process model. In this paper we introduce a metamodel for process views as well as process viewing patterns which specify elementary transformations to alter an existing process. The patterns are presented in a technology independent manner and can be applied to any process language that can be represented by a process graph.

Abstract: In recent years, models are increasingly used throughout the entire lifecycle in software development projects. In effect, the need for collaborating on these models emerged, requiring change tracking and versioning. However, many researchers have shown that existing methods and tools for Version Control (VC) do not work well on graph-like models, such as UML, SysML or domain-specific modeling languages. To alleviate this, alternative techniques and methods have been proposed which can be classified into state-based and operation-based approaches. Existing research shows advantages of operation-based over state-based approaches in selected use cases, such as conflict detection or merging. However, there are only few results available on the advantages of operation-based approaches in the most common use case of a VC system: review and understand change. In this paper, we present and discuss both approaches and their use cases. Moreover, we present the results of an empirical study to compare a state-based with an operation-based approach for the use case of reviewing and understanding change. For this study, we have mined an operation-based model repository and interviewed users to assess their understanding of randomly selected changes. Our results indicate that users better understand complex changes in the operation-based representation.

Abstract: An important challenge in the Knowledge Representation area is on representing and reasoning over temporally changing information. Particularly, a number of authors have been investigating approaches to extend the expressivity beyond what is currently supported by the DL (Description Logics) based languages in order to address this issue, while maintaining compatibility with subclasses of DLs adopted in the Semantic Web. This is mainly due to the increasing popularity of the Semantic Web initiative as well as the role played by DL in that context. In this paper we defend the need of a higher-level foundational framework based on results coming from the discipline of Formal Ontology. We present two complementary proposals for modeling temporally changing information in OWL, based on the most discussed strategy in the literature to address this problem, namely, the use of a perdurantist (or 4D) view of domain entities. Moreover we compare the results with some related work and discuss its limitations and further improvements.

Abstract: Today’s enterprises are confronted with an ever changing environment demanding continuous adaptation. A commonly accepted instrument to guide such transformations is enterprise architecture (EA) management. Enterprises seeking to introduce and establish such a management function see themselves confronted with a plethora of tools, approaches, and frameworks that claim to provide the definitive design prescriptions’ for an EA management function. The applicability of the different prescriptions nevertheless heavily depends on the organizational context in which such a management function has to be embedded and the EA-related goals that the enterprise wants to pursue. This paper presents a design theory nexus (DTN) for situational EA management, that helps enterprises to choose the EA management approach best suited for their specific situation. To build such a DTN, related work from the field of situational method engineering is revisited and prominent approaches to EA management are discussed. Utilizing the DTN an enterprise can specify its organizational context as well as its goals, and is provided with a selection of suitable approaches. The applicability of the approach is exemplified along the EA management pattern catalog of the TU Munich.

Abstract: Several approaches have already been proposed to extract both business processes and business rules from a legacy source code. These approaches consider static source code analysis for the extraction procedure. However, business processes have components that can not be directly extracted by static analysis (i.e., participants, responsibilities, and concurrent activities). Moreover, well-known static analysis algorithms do not support the incremental extraction of information from the legacy code. Large legacy systems can benefit from an incremental analysis strategy in order to provide iterative information extraction as well as to achieve partial results much earlier. This paper discusses a new approach for business knowledge extraction from legacy systems. The approach considers an incremental process mining technique to extract business process structures and the business rules associated to it. Discovery results can be used in various ways by business analysts and software architects, e.g. documentation of legacy systems or for re-engineering purposes.

Abstract: Driven by dynamic market demands, enterprises are continuously exploring collaborations with others to add value to their services and seize new market opportunities. Achieving enterprise collaboration is facilitated by Enterprise Application Integration and Business-to-Business approaches that employ architectural paradigms like Service Oriented Architecture and incorporate technological advancements in networking and computing. However, flexibility remains a major challenge related to enterprise collaboration. How can changes in demands and opportunities be reflected in collaboration solutions with minimum time and effort and with maximum reuse of existing applications? This paper proposes an approach towards a more flexible integration of enterprise applications in the context of service mediation. We achieve this by combining goal-based, model-driven and service-oriented approaches. In particular, we pay special attention to the separation of business rules from the business process of the integration solution. Specifying the requirements as goal models, we separate those parts which are more likely to evolve over time in terms of business rules. These business rules are then made executable by exposing them as Web services and incorporating them into the design of the business process. Thus, should the business rules change, the business process remains unaffected. Finally, this paper also provides an evaluation of the flexibility of our solution in relation to the current work in business process flexibility research.

Abstract: The adoption of Enterprise Architecture (EA) concepts within organizations is causing an interest in the methodologies and supporting technologies available. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) supports EA in many facets. However, there is much dissolution with regard to the relationship between EA and SOA within organizations. There are also potential problems that may arise if this relationship between SOA and EA is not agreed to at the outset of implementing an EA. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the growing role and importance of understanding the relationship between SOA and EA, and in doing so to demystify some of the expectations of the role that SOA plays in EA.

Abstract: In recent years, business process models are increasingly being used as a means for business process improvement. Business rules can be seen as requirements for business processes, in that they describe the constraints that must hold for business processes that implement these business rules. Therefore, in principle one could devise (automated) transformations from business rules to business processes. These transformations should improve the quality (correctness) of business processes, by imposing their conformance to the applicable business rules, and should also allow business processes to be optimized for some additional requirements, like, for example, resource allocation, performance and costs. The objectives of this paper are twofold: to investigate the automated support to transform business rules into optimized processes, and to assess the suitability of model-driven technologies (metamodeling and transformations) and tools to implement these transformations.

Abstract: In Model Driven Engineering (MDE), model transformations are basic and primordial entities, thus easing their design and implementation is an important issue. A quite recently proposed way to create model transformations consists in deducing a transformation from examples of transformed models. Examples are easier to write than a transformation program and are often already available. We propose in this paper a method based on a machine learning method of the lattice domain, the Relational Concept Analysis, and an implementation of this method.

Abstract: In this paper we propose a typed approach to business process specification based on typed workflow charts. These can be exploited as a domain-specific programming language and facilitate tight integration between workflow definition and system dialogue programming. The approach also supports the integration of business process modeling and business process automation. We discuss two ways of exploiting this potential for integration, one is the design of an integrated business process management suite and the other is a software artifact tracker based on a view-based, multi-dimensional software modeling tool.

Abstract: The benefit of enterprise architecture (EA) managementis directly coupled to the underlying conceptualization of the enterprise. This conceptualization should reflect the goals pursued by the EA management endeavor and focus on the areas of interest of the involved stakeholders. Whereas this statements often goes as a matter of course, an enterprise willing to develop such a goal-adequate conceptualization, finds itself confronted with a plethora of different approaches typically proposing a one-size-fits-it-all model, which neglects the subject of enterprise-specificity. These models are typically described in an object-oriented manner utilizing concepts like class, property, and relationship. Specific aspects relevant in the area of EA management, such as temporality, property-dependency, and cross-cutting aspects are more often than not neglected in this approaches. In this paper, we addresses the challenge of conceptualizing cross-cutting aspects in EA modeling. Cross-cutting aspects refer to EA-related concepts, like goals or projects, which may exert influence on other concepts of the EA model. Therefore, the state-of-the-art in EA conceptualization is revisited resulting in the identification of four cross-cutting aspects of EA modeling: goals, lifecycles, projects, and standards. Along these aspects we raise questions concerning a suitable alternative modeling language for EA conceptualizations and discuss options of future research.

Abstract: Enterprise Architecture (EA) models the whole vision of an organisation in various aspects regarding both business processes and information technology resources As the organisation grows, the architecture governing its systems and processes must also evolve to meet with the demands of the business environment In this context, a critical issue is change propagation: given a set of primary changes that have been made to the EA model, what additional secondary changes are needed to maintain consistency across multiple levels of the EA This paper proposes an enterprise architectural description language, namely Change Aware Hierarchical EA, integrated with a framework to support change propagation within an EA model The core part of our change propagation framework is a new method for generating interactive repair plans from Alloy consistency rules that constrain the EA model

Abstract: Enterprise applications are presently built on a 20-year old data management infrastructure that was designed to meet a specific set of requirements for OLTP systems. In the meantime, enterprise applications have become more sophisticated, data set sizes have increased, requirements on the freshness of input data have been strengthened, and the time allotted for completing business processes has been reduced. To meet these challenges, enterprise applications have become increasingly complicated to make up for short-comings in the data management infrastructure. To address this issue we investigate recent trends in data management such as main memory databases, column stores and compression techniques with regards to the workload requirements and data characteristics derived from actual customer systems. We show that a main memory column store is better suited for to days enterprise systems, which we validate by using SAP’s Net Weaver Business Warehouse Accelerator and a realistic set of data from an inventory management application.

Abstract: The design and implementation of collaborative business processes and the Business-to-Business (B2B) systems that support them is an important issue in order to enable enterprises to set up B2B collaborations. This involves new challenges, mainly regarding the ability to cope with change, decentralized management, peer-to-peer interactions, preservation of enterprise autonomy, and the support for interoperability. The design and implementation of B2B collaborations require the use of conceptual models that differ in viewpoint, target people, abstraction level and granularity. This makes the use of traditional software development methodologies inappropriate. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the design and implementation of B2B collaborations that support the above issues. The methodology supports a development framework and is based on the Model-Driven Development (MDD). The methodology provides guidelines, languages, methods, model transformations and tools to support the representation of business requirements, the definition of technology-independent collaborative process models, the derivation of technology-independent processes and IT architectures that enterprises require to support collaborative processes as well as the generation of a technology-specific solution for each enterprise. This methodology guarantees the alignment and consistency between the business and technological solutions for B2B collaborations.

Abstract: This paper describes our architecture-based approach to IT valuation. It sketches how different valuation methods can be combined and linked to models of business requirements and enterprise architecture, and how a first part of this approach is realized using Archi Mate and BiZZ design Architect. In this manner, the value and cost of different elements in the architecture can be computed and attributed to the various goals of the organization.

Abstract: The paradigm of service orientation is heavily used to design complex IT systems able to satisfy the need for an agile business support. Many enterprises have established service-oriented architectures (SOAs) of different size and complexity. However, such SOAs need efficient management and the discipline of enterprise architecture management has only just begun to reflect the shift from application orientation to service orientation. This contribution discusses how enterprise architecture management can react on service orientation by providing a viewpoint-driven approach. We present a methodology able to develop SOA viewpoints by systematically addressing stakeholder concerns, designing an adequate metamodel, identifying data sources and providing visualizations for stakeholders' analyses. To evaluate the approach, 45 SOA-related concerns were collected, a comprehensive metamodel was designed, and a prototype was implemented able to support typical SOA analyses in an enterprise context.

Abstract: This paper reviews the support for the goal domain in several enterprise modelling approaches and enterprise architecture frameworks, namely, ARIS, ISO RM-ODP Enterprise Language, DoDAF, MODAF, BPMN/BMM, ArchiMate and its ARMOR extension. We describe how these efforts propose to align goals with the remaining elements in enterprise architectures (with special attention to the alignment of goals and business processes). Our aims are twofold: (i) to provide an integrated overview of the support for goal-related concepts in existing enterprise modelling approaches of and, (ii) provide guidance for the selection of the frameworks with respect to the support for goal-related concepts.

Abstract: Recent trends in the use of service oriented architecture for designing, developing, managing, and using distributed applications have resulted in an increasing number of independently developed and physically distributed services. These services can be discovered, selected and composed to develop new applications and to meet emerging user requirements. Service composition is generally defined on the basis of business processes in which the underlying composition logic is guided by specifying control and data flows through Web service interfaces. User demands as well as the services themselves may change over time, which leads to replacing or adjusting the composition logic of previously defined processes. Coping with change is still one of the fundamental problems in current process based composition approaches. In this paper, we exploit declarative and imperative design styles to achieve better flexibility in service composition.

Abstract: This paper describes the results of the FP6 project SWIM-SUIT (System Wide Information Management -- Supported by Innovative Technologies) that currently integrates a number of existing ATM (Air Traffic Management) systems on top of a newly build prototype. As SWIM-SUIT has been identified to provide relevant inputs to SESAR, the authors give an overview on the prototype architecture and major software components. The relevant data domains for the prototype are Flight Data, Surveillance Data and Aeronautical Information. The paper provides insights and lessons learned derived from the design decisions of the prototype implementation as guidance for future work to take place within SESAR. The last part of the paper presents a view on the ongoing validation activities that connect ATM systems throughout Europe to the SWIM-SUIT prototype

Abstract: efficient development of loosely-coupled and interoperable sets of services. Existing design approaches do not always take full advantage of the value and importance of the engineering invested in existing legacy systems. This paper proposes an approach to define the key services from such legacy systems effectively. The approach focuses on defining these services based on a Model-Driven Architecture approach supported by guidelines over a wide range of possible service types.

Abstract: This paper presents a mapping between the Enterprise Architecture framework ArchiMate and the Substation Configuration Language (SCL) of IEC 61850. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a discipline for managing an enterprise’s information system portfolio in relation to the supported business. Metamodels, descriptive models on how to model and one of the core components of EA, can assist stakeholders in many ways, for example in decision-making. Moreover, the power industry is a domain with an augmented reliance on the support of information systems. IEC 61850 is a standard for the design of Substation Automation (SA) systems and provides a vendor independent framework for interoperability by defining communication networks and functions. The SCL is a descriptive language in IEC 61850 on the configuration of substation Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED) which describes the structure together with physical components and their relating functions. By using SCL, which models the architecture of SA systems, and mapping it to ArchiMate, stakeholders are assisted in understanding their SA system and its architecture. The mapping is intended to support the integration of SA systems applying IEC 61850 into the enterprise architecture. The mapping is demonstrated with an example applying the mapping to a SA configuration based on SCL.

Abstract: Organizations define strategies and establish business goals aiming to be competitive. The process performance analysis supports goals monitoring, allowing to detect and to treat threats to goals achievement. In this context, measurement is essential. The collected data for measures are used to analyze the process performance and to guide informed decisions that lead to the achievement of business and technical goals. For software organizations, the process performance analysis is a high maturity practice. In this context, although there are several standards that address the importance of software measurement and its use in process performance analysis, the vocabulary used by these standards concerning software measurement is diverse. In order to establish a conceptualization regarding this domain, we developed a Software Measurement Ontology (SMO), grounded in the Unified Foundational Ontology. In this paper, we present a fragment of SMO with focus on software process behavior analysis.

Abstract: Service outsourcing is a business paradigm in which an organization has a part of its business process performed by a service provider. Process views are pivotal to support this way of working. A process view shields secret or irrelevant details from a private business process, thus allowing an organization to reveal only public, relevant parts of its private business process to partner organizations. The paper introduces a conceptual framework to support service outsourcing using process views. The framework gives rules that can be used to construct a process view from a conceptual process and vice versa. Based on these rules, the framework defines several projection relations that can exist between conceptual processes of consumers and providers and their process views. Finally, the framework gives a set of configuration options that specify which combinations of projection relations are useful for service consumers and service providers. The framework is applied in a BPEL-based case study.

Abstract: With the service-oriented paradigm, some established ways of thinking about software quality and its assurance seem to change. But things do not necessarily become more difficult. Some considerable advancements to traditional ways of quality management can be introduced through the use of service-based systems, leading to largely reduced efforts and increased quality. In this article we identify the main challenges and opportunities for software development that evolve out of the transition to service-based systems, derived from both theory and the documented experience gained within a large-scale SOA application development scenario. Our research shows that there are significant benefits with respect to interoperability and changeability, while other quality attributes such as performance raise concerns. Within a third group of attributes, including security and testability, we see contradictory evidence. Especially regarding testing our field work reveals considerable advancements whereas literature reports concerns. Some of the challenges we identified, however, may be temporary as tools and methodologies are evolving.

Abstract: Consolidation of IT resources is a frequently cited task for IT decision makers, aiming to remove redundancy and thereby to cut costs However, while economically motivated, the methods described in the literature rarely address costs directly Instead, the focus often remains on purely IT-related considerations In this paper, IT consolidation is addressed fro man operations research perspective, applying a binary integer programming model to find optimal solutions to consolidation problems Since accurate cost estimates are vital to successful consolidation, and play an important role in the presented binary integer program, the paper also addresses the costs involved in consolidation, with a particular focus on the costs of modifying business processes Applying the mathematical method, with accurate cost estimates, enables decision makers to make optimal decisions in a transparent and rigorous way The use of the proposed method is demonstrated with an example based on a real consolidation problem from a large European power supplier

Abstract: With the advent of languages and tools dedicated to model-driven engineering (e.g., ATL, Kermeta, EMF), as well as reference metamodels (MOF, Ecore), model-driven development processes can be used easily. However, the maturity of a software engineering technology should be evaluated by the degree of use of trace ability practices. One of the first major challenges consists in generating automatically trace information during a transformation process. Our contribution is a tool dedicated to infer traces during the execution of a model transformation. This tool is based on aspect oriented programming which permits us to isolate management of traces and imperative transformations code in a Java/EMF environment. A meta-model of nested traces allows the visualisation of traces as nested graphs which represent the trace ability links and the control flow diagram of the execution. A model-to-model case study is proposed as an example to illustrate our contribution.

Abstract: Cloud computing is already a major trend in IT. Cloud services are being offered at application (software), platform and infrastructure levels. This paper presents our initial modeling efforts towards service creation at the infrastructure level. The purpose of these modeling efforts is to understand and reason about the service creation process. The paper presents a conceptual model represented as a UML class diagram, and identifies the interactions between service providers and infrastructure providers that are necessary in order to set up an execution environment and deploy services on top of infrastructure services. Although the models are far from complete, we are confident that they already give us some insight in the service creation process.

Abstract: A constant goal of enterprises of all sizes is to align their business with IT. The major concern is to design the technology to support the desired performance goals and business values. In e-business collaborations, services are becoming the cornerstones for modeling the offerings of the involved parties. However, business concepts, like value offerings, typically cannot be linked to technology levels, such as SOA and Web services. Business value models, formulated in terms of economic values, have been recognized as the basis for eliciting the actors in a business scenario and their relationships. Recently, several business ontological frameworks have been proposed to facilitate the design of business value models. Aiming towards an MDA-aligned approach, in our study we consider business value models for creating a service-centric Computational Independent Model (CIM). By utilizing well-defined mappings, the model is further transformed into a UML-based system model at the Platform Independent Model (PIM) level, capturing both the static and behavioral specifications of elicited e-services.

Abstract: Automation of business transactions between trading partners is an important factor in today’s global business. XML based e-Business standards are developed to provide a shared understanding on what information to share, when and how between trading partners. However these standards can only capture the syntax of the transactions and not the semantics. This paper presents an ontology for ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (ebBP), with the aim of empowering the capture and sharing semantics embedded within B2B processes, enabling knowledge deduction and reasoning over this shared knowledge. The ebBP ontology presented covers both syntax included in the ebBP XML schema and the informal semantics of the ebBP specification and is fundamentally different from an automatic transformation of XML to OWL. This ontology is evaluated against a set of competency questions, using a publicly available ordering process. This paper demonstrates how semantic web technologies can be utilised in order to improve standards-based interoperability between trading partners.