An approach to modeling business processes based on business artifacts considers data as an essential part of business processes, and it defines the business processes in terms of interacting key business artifacts. The business artifacts are usually identified by business users as the key elements of the process and can be seen as a kind of vocabulary of the process (similar to the notion of the domain ontology). Each business artifact (BA) is characterized by an information model and a lifecycle model. The information model records all business-relevant information about a BA instance as it moves through the business operations. The lifecycle specifies all possible evolutions of a BA instance over time (e.g., in terms of activities/tasks and their flows acting on the data). The BA methodology is often used as a technique for horizontal integration of heterogeneous applications and processes since it provides a unifying view over the heterogeneous, often siloed domains.
Published in Chapter:
Semantic Monitoring of Service-Oriented Business Processes
Roman Vaculín (T.J. Watson Research Center, IBM Research, USA)
Copyright: © 2012
|Pages: 28
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0146-8.ch022
Abstract
Monitoring of business processes and service-oriented systems is a critical enabling technology for improving visibility into business operations, allowing their optimization, adjustments, and restructuring. One of the major problems of current monitoring methods is the prevalent heterogeneity of various types existing among the applications and services used in complex distributed business process. In this chapter the author proposes semantic monitoring as a possible solution addressing some of the heterogeneity problems. The idea of semantic monitoring is to apply semantic annotations, using ontologies, to descriptions of event types and event instances emitted during interactions with integrated applications. The chapter introduces a generic semantic monitoring framework consisting of a modular monitoring ontology and appropriate event detection mechanisms. The monitoring ontology defines generic, language independent monitoring concepts, and the language specific modules defining taxonomy of event types specific to a particular process modeling language/methodology. The author presents two such modules, one developed for the OWL-S Semantic Web services process models, and the other that for a business artifact-centric approach to business process specification. Next, the chapter describes mechanisms for specification and detection of semantic composite events. The author presents a language based on an event algebra combined with semantic event-filtering expressions using description logics atoms enriched with OWL datatypes and SWRL built-ins. Semantic filtering allows detection of such events that would otherwise be impossible without the use of semantic descriptions. The chapter also discusses detection mechanisms suitable for runtime execution and after-execution analysis.