Implementing managed loosely-coupled distributed business processes: a new approach using DIME networks

Abstract

The coordination and choreography of independently-developed and locally-managed distributed processes is a key requirement of the emerging business environment in which organisations form, and break, relationships with other organisations on the fly to meet business goals, for example, provide customer and stakeholder value. The current set of Business Process Management Systems do not support this dynamicity of relationships and processes – or process mobility – creating new channels, reassigning channels, in particular, to processes whose existence becomes known only at run-time and may differ by instance. This dynamic nature of the relationships and processes is founded on π-calculus mobility. This paper presents a new approach to implement π-calculus mobility using Distributed Intelligent Managed Element (DIME) network architecture; it is shown how process mobility is an inherent capability of DIMEs. This paper also proposes the use of DIME FCAPS capabilities to support Business Services Management (...