how to integrate heterogenous bpm schemas jan mendling dept. of is and new media, wu wien

How to integrate heterogenous BPM schemas

Jan MendlingDept. of IS and New Media, WU Wien

How to Consolidate heterogeneous BPM standards 04.05.2005Slide 2

Agenda

1. Heterogeneity of BPM standards

2. BPM standards

3. Applicability of schema integration

4. Ingredients of BPM schema integration


Agenda

1. Heterogeneity of BPM Standards


Scenario

Consulting

Customer

Simulation

Workflow


Application scenarios for process modelling: organisation

• Documentation of organisation:

transparency, communication, job descriptions

• Process Reengineering:

Continuous Improvement, Optimization

• Continuous Process Management:

Process controlling and monitoring

• ISO 9000 Certification:

Quality management

• Benchmarking:

Comparison to Best Practices

• Knowledge Management:

Documentation of knowledge, explication of terminology


Application scenarios for process modelling: information systems

• Selection of ERP software:

Comparison of vendor-specific reference models with processes

• Model-based customizing:

Customization of OTC standard software

• Software engineering:

Process models as part of requirements analysis

• Workflow management:

Automation of processes

• Simulation:

Identification of bottle-necks, calculation of needed resources


Business Process Lifecycle

Process Metrics

other reportingpurposes

ProcessImplementation

ProcessDesign

Process Enactment

Process Evaluation

Process Models

Impl

emen

ted

Pro

cess

es

Mea

sure

s fo

r Im

pro

vem

ent

Process Metrics

Mea

sure

-men

ts

Process Monitoring

Animation,Simulation

Metrics,Targets

Goals,Evironmental

Analysis,Organizational

Analysis

Tar

get

Va

lue

s

M. zur Muehlen: Workflow-basedProcess Controlling, 2004


Heterogeneity problems

AMLAML

BPEL4WS

tools : metamodel : interchange format


Standardised interchange format is missing


Agenda

2. BPM Standards


Standardisation Initiatives

• Object Management Group (OMG)

• Workflow Management Coalition

• Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI)

• Organization for the Advancement of Structured

Information Standards (OASIS) (+ UN/CEFACT)

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

• academic initiatives


BPM Specifications

• Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM) by OMG

• Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) by OASIS

• Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) by BPMI

• Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) by BPMI

• Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) by OASIS + UN/CEFACT

• EPC Markup Language (EPML) by academia

• OWL-S by academia

• Petri Net Markup Language (PNML) by academia

• UML ActD by OMG

• WS-Choreography Description Language (WSCDL) by W3C

• WS Choreography Interface (WSCI) by W3C

• WS Choreography Language (WSCL) by Hewlett-Packard

• WS Flow Language (WSFL) by IBM

• XLANG by Microsoft

• XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) by WfMC


Interchange formats: general design criteria

• simple to be easy to understand (by expert!)

• complete include all important concepts

• general suitable for different scenarios

• unambigous precise terminology and semantics

• extensible for future development and additional

information

see: J. Mendling, G. Neumann, M. Nüttgens: A Comparison of XML Interchange Formats for Business Process Modelling. In: F. Feltz, A. Oberweis, B. Otjacques, eds.: Proc. of EMISA 2004 "Informationssysteme im E-Business und E-Government", Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Vol. 56 of Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), pages 129-140, October 2004.


Agenda

3. Applicability of schema integration


Schema Integration Methodology

• Common data model

• Schema conflicts

• Merge building on similarity relations between schema concepts

• Disjointness

• Intersection

• Subset

• Equality

• Criteria for global integrated schema (Batini et al. 1986)

• Completeness

• Minimality

• Understandability


Case of PNML and BPEL4WS

a

b c

<pnml><place id="1"> </initialMarking></place><arc source="1" target="2"/><transition id="2"> <name>a</name> </transition> <arc source="2" target="3"/> <place id="3"/>...

1

4

23 5

6

<process><sequence> <invoke a/> <flow> <sequence> <invoke b/> ... </sequence> <sequence> <invoke c/> ... </sequence> </flow></sequence>... ...

Petri Net Markup Language BPELPetri Net Process Model BPEL Process Model

sequence

flow

invoke a

sequence sequence

invoke b invoke c


Metamodels of PNML and BPEL4WS

Petri Net

Object

Transition

Arc

*

Node

Place

BPEL4WS

Activity

*

Sequence ......

*


Using schema integration?

PetriNet

object

transition/basic activity

node

*

arc

place

process

activity

*

sequence ...

*

structuredactivity

invoke ...

generalprocess


Agenda

4. Ingredients of BPM schema integration


Keep the balance

• Bottom-up schema integration

• Required concepts and relationships

• Generalisation of concepts

• Top-down domain modelling

• Identify mappings between concepts

• Consolidation of concepts


Which modifications are needed?

ExternalSchema

ExternalSchema

FederatedSchema

ExportSchema

ExportSchema

ComponentSchema

ComponentSchema

LocalSchema

LocalSchema

different data representations

e.g. ER, OO, relational model

common data representations

homogenizedschemas

mergedschema

presentationschema

e.g. GIM, HDM

e.g. GIM, HDM

e.g. GIM, HDM

e.g. ER, OO, relational model

e.g. EPC, YAWL, Petri Nets, BPEL

e.g. EPC, YAWL, Petri Nets, BPEL

?

?

?

Schema Architecture Artifacts static models behavior models

Jan MendlingAbteilung für Wirtschaftsinformatik und Neue Medien, WU Wien

Vielen Dankfür die Aufmerksamkeit


Metamodels and interchange formats

Metamodel Interchange Format

ModelInterchange Format

Instance

instantiates instantiates

represents

maps to

see J. Mendling, G. Neumann, M. Nüttgens: A Comparison of XML Interchange Formats for Business Process Modelling. In: F. Feltz, A. Oberweis, B. Otjacques, eds.: Proc. of EMISA 2004 "Informationssysteme im E-Business und E-Government", Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Vol. 56 of Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), pages 129-140, October 2004.


Standardisierungs-Organisationen

• Object Management Group (OMG)

• Workflow Management Coalition

• Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI)

• Organization for the Advancement of Structured

Information Standards (OASIS) (+ UN/CEFACT)

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

• Akademische Initiativen


Effekte der Standardisierung von Austauchformaten

• Pragmatischer Effekt: Austausch von Modellen

• Ökonomischer Effekt: Reduzierter Lock-In, mehr Wettbewerb

• Konzeptioneller Effekt: Konsolidation der Konzepte



Agenda

3. Wie kann man Austauschformate definieren?


Aufgreifen der Vorlesung

• Methode, Technik, …

see: D. Karagiannis, H. Kühn: Metamodelling Plattforms. In: K. Bauknecht, A. Min Tjoa, G. Quirchmayer, eds.: Proceedings of the Third International Conference EC-Web 2002 – Dexa 2002, Aix-en-Provence, France, Vol. 2455 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), pages 182, September 2002. http://www.dke.univie.ac.at/mmp/FullVersion_MMP_DexaECWeb2002.pdf


Modell und Datei

UML-Klassendiagramm XMI-Datei


Austauschformate: Allgemeine Gestaltungs-Kriterien

• Einfachheit gute Verständlichkeit

• Vollständigkeit Bereitstellung aller wichtigen

Konzepte

• Allgemeingültigkeit für verschiedene Szenarien geeignet

• Eindeutigkeit Präzise Terminologie und Semantik

• Erweiterbarkeit für Zusatzinfo und Weiterentwicklung



Spezifikationsmöglichkeiten

• Interchange Format Onlybspw. BPEL4WS

• Mappings Onlybspw. XMI

• Joint Specificationbspw. PNML




Instance


represents

maps to



Instance


represents

maps to



Instance


represents

maps to

how to integrate heterogenous bpm schemas jan mendling dept. of is and new media, wu wien

Documents

heterogeneous bpm standards

wfmc slide

missing slide

heterogeneity of bpm

interchange format slide

business process modelling

wu wien slide

business process lifecycle