Business Process Interoperability Research Articles

Communication Network Standards for Smart Grid Infrastructures

Upgrading the existing energy infrastructure to a smart grid necessarily goes through the provision of integrated technological solutions that ensure the interoperability of business processes and reduce the risk of devaluation of systems already in use. Considering the heterogeneity of the current infrastructures, and in order to keep pace with the dynamics of their operating environment, we should aim to the reduction of their architectural complexity and the addition of new and more efficient technologies and procedures. Furthermore, the integrated management of the overall ecosystem requires a collaborative integration strategy which should ensure the end-to-end interconnection under specific quality standards together with the establishment of strict security policies. In this respect, every design detail can be critical to the success or failure of a costly and ambitious project, such as that of smart energy networks. This work presents and classifies the communication network standards that have been established for smart grids and should be taken into account in the process of planning and implementing new infrastructures.

The Integration of Corporate Security Strategies in Collaborative Business Processes

In response to increasing economical constraints, enterprise organization has evolved toward new structures such as networked enterprise, supply chains, virtual enterprise, or collaborative business organizations. This structural organization requires the interoperability of business processes (BPs)and information systems. Dealing with interoperability often leads to the deployment of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) to design agile collaborative BPs and publish and compose new services. In order to protect each partner's own interests, security strategies must be developed and integrated in the service environment. Unfortunately, traditional security approaches deal with security concerns from a technical perspective (i.e., data transmission or authentication, etc.) and do not support end-to-end security in a distributed environment of business services and collaborative processes. In this paper, we attempt to improve end-to-end security by annotating service descriptions with security objectives used to generate convenient quality of protection (QoP) agreements between partners. Conversely, agreements are processed by a dedicated matching module with respect to security requirements and preferences to select business services, and then, compose their appropriate technical security services.

Research on Enterprise Application Integration Based on Service Oriented and Workflow

Aiming at the disadvantages like the enterprise application system scalability, integration and interoperability is not strong, neglecting the business process integration, the integration platform lacks flexibility and adaptability, based on service oriented and workflow technology system, Service-oriented and for integration of foundation, enterprise application integration system solutions were proposed. To realize loosely coupled, business process integration, high integration and interoperability strong application integration system we need discuss enterprise application integration the architecture and hierarchical model.

Transformation of decisional models into UML: application to GRAI grids

Model-driven engineering (MDE) significantly improves the software development process as well as enterprise integration. Based on both modelling and transformation activities it is possible to link models at different levels of abstraction in a classical forward engineering process in order to produce code or, in a reverse engineering process, to produce models from code by a bottom-up approach. But it can also be used to bridge the gap between models belonging to different domains that use different formalisms. This paper therefore focuses mainly on the transformation of decisional models belonging to the Enterprise Modelling domain into UML models used in the Information Technology domain. This kind of transformation is one component of a more general model-driven approach to solve business process interoperability problems or, more widely still, integration problems. More precisely, the paper describes two UML Profile definitions used to transform GRAI Grids into UML Use Case Diagrams or Activity Diagrams. The implementation of these Profiles with the Atlas Transformation Language (ATL) is presented and results are compared and discussed.

ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND ACTIVITY PROCESS

The article is research work on organization of information systems and business process interoperability problem. A brief information about activity processes and use of operating models is supplied. Emphasis lies on activity process reenginering importance considering the available information technology. Summarizes the methods and models of activity process analysis. A practical organization of information resources is setting as an example.

Architectural Approaches for HL7-based Health Information Systems Implementation

Information systems integration is hard, especially when semantic and business process interoperability requirements need to be met. To succeed, a unified methodology, approaching different aspects of systems architecture such as business, information, computational, engineering and technology viewpoints, has to be considered. The paper contributes with an analysis and demonstration on how the HL7 standard set can support health information systems integration. Based on the Health Information Systems Development Framework (HIS-DF), common architectural models for HIS integration are analyzed. The framework is a standard-based, consistent, comprehensive, customizable, scalable methodology that supports the design of semantically interoperable health information systems and components. Three main architectural models for system integration are analyzed: the point to point interface, the messages server and the mediator models. Point to point interface and messages server models are completely supported by traditional HL7 version 2 and version 3 messaging. The HL7 v3 standard specification, combined with service-oriented, model-driven approaches provided by HIS-DF, makes the mediator model possible. The different integration scenarios are illustrated by describing a proof-of-concept implementation of an integrated public health surveillance system based on Enterprise Java Beans technology. Selecting the appropriate integration architecture is a fundamental issue of any software development project. HIS-DF provides a unique methodological approach guiding the development of healthcare integration projects. The mediator model - offered by the HIS-DF and supported in HL7 v3 artifacts - is the more promising one promoting the development of open, reusable, flexible, semantically interoperable, platform-independent, service-oriented and standard-based health information systems.

Enhancing E-Service Collaboration with Enforcement and Relationship Management

In a business-to-business (B2B) e-service environment, cross-organizational collaboration is important for attaining the interoperability of business processes and their proper enactment. The authors find that B2B collaboration can be divided into multiple layers and perspectives, which has not been adequately addressed in the literature. Besides regular e-service process enactment, robust collaboration requires enforcement, while quality collaboration involves relationship management. These problems are challenging, as they require the enactment of business processes and their monitoring in counter parties outside an organization’s boundary. This paper presents a framework for B2B process collaboration with three layers, namely, collaboration requirements layer, business rule layer, and system implementation layer. The collaboration requirements layer specifies the cross-organizational requirements of e-service processes. In the business rule layer, detailed knowledge of these three types of process collaboration requirements is defined as business rules in a unified Event-Condition-Action (ECA) form. In the system implementation layer, event collaboration interfaces are supported by contemporary Enterprise JavaBeans and Web Services. Based on this architecture, a methodology is presented for the engineering of e-service process collaboration from high-level business requirements down to system implementation details. As a result, B2B process collaboration can be seamlessly defined, enacted, and enforced. Conceptual models of various layers are given in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). We illustrate the applicability of our framework with a running example based on a supply-chain process and evaluate our approach from the perspective of three main stakeholders of e-collaboration, namely users, management, and systems developers.

Business process interoperability and collaborative performance measurement

In the recent years, inter-organisational cooperation has been one of the organisational strategies most used to compete and become adapted to the exigencies of the global market. In this context, internal business processes of the cooperative enterprises should interact to pursue common objectives that will be profitable for all parts. Therefore, it is necessary to measure the performance of these business processes under a strategic approach and in a twofold manner, from a global perspective (inter-enterprise) and from an individual or partial perspective (intra-enterprise). Performance measurement systems (PMSs) described in the literature that discuss this context are very different in their conception and broadness. This paper describes the basic characteristics that PMSs should fulfil to cover interoperability requirements and a literature review of the PMSs that deal with business process interoperability in order to gain detailed insight into PMS definition for these contexts. From the literature review, a comparison of the PMSs is obtained with regard to eight core characteristics for these contexts: business process representation, business process measurement, business process lifecycle management, PMS intra and interorganisational levels measurement, process-decomposition approach, intra-inter-process connection measurement, interorganisational coordination measurement, and common interorganisational strategy.

Fragmentary structure of global knowledge: constructive processes for interoperability

PurposeThe application of category theory to interoperability to increase understanding of the problems and to facilitate the development of practical tools for their solution.Design/methodology/approachCategory theory is naturally suited to handling interoperability. The use of first order predicate logic in many information systems may be justified through its completeness. However, the work of Gödel shows that such systems are undecidable if they rely on formal systems of number and/or sets. For interoperability dyadic higher order logic is required, which is neither complete nor decidable if based on sets. However, pure category theory is still axiomatic so is also neither complete nor decidable. Applied category theory based on cartesian closed categories for process is natural and is both complete and decidable. Gödel's theorems therefore do not apply.FindingsThe paper finds that composed adjunctions appear particularly well‐suited for modelling interoperability, with composition of distinct functors for mapping across a number of levels and of endofunctors for business process interoperability. The monad/comonad category provides a powerful abstraction of the business process. The development of a tool based on categorial principles written in Haskell may be a way forward but only as an initial set model approach.Originality/valueThis paper applies categorial constructions which permit a natural formal approach to interoperability.

Architectural Approaches for HL7-based Health Information Systems Implementation

Objective: Information systems integration is hard, especially when semantic and business process interoperability requirements need to be met. To succeed, a unified methodology, approaching different aspects of systems architecture such as b u s i n e s s , i n f o r m a t i o n , c o m p u - tational, engineering and techno- logy viewpoints, has to be considered. The paper contributes with an analysis and demonstration on how the HL7 standard set can support health information systems integration. Conclusion Selecting the appropriate integration architecture is a fundamental issue of any software development project. HIS-DF provides a unique methodological approach guiding the development of healthcare integration projects. The mediator model – offered by the HIS-DF and supported in HL7 v3 artifacts – is the more promising one promoting the development of open, reusable, flexible, semantically interoperable, platform- independent, service-oriented and standard-based health information systems. Methods: Based on t he Health I n f o rma- tion Systems Development Frame- work (HIS-DF), common architectural models for HIS integration are analyzed. The framework is a standard-based, consistent, comprehensive, customizable, scalable methodology that supports the design of semantically interoperable health information systems and components. Results: Three main architectural models for system integration are analyzed: the point to point interface, the messages server and the mediator models. Point to point interface and messages server models are completely supported by traditional HL7 version 2 and version 3 messaging. The HL7 v3 standard specification, combined with service-oriented, model-driven approaches provided by HIS-DF, makes the mediator model possible. The different integration scenarios are illustrated by describing a proof-of-concept imple- mentation of an integrated public health surveillance system based on Enterprise Java Beans technology. Conclusion: Selecting the appropriate integration architecture is a fundamental issue of any software development project. HIS-DF provides a unique methodological approach guiding the development of healthcare integration projects. The mediator model – offered by the HIS-DF and supported in HL7 v3 artifacts – is the more promising one promoting the development of open, reusable, flexible, semantically interoperable, platform- independent, service-oriented and standard-based health information systems.

UML Profiles for Transforming GRAI Decisional Models into UML Use Cases

Abstract This paper focuses mainly on the transformation of decisional models belonging to the Enterprise Modelling domain into UML® models used in the Information Technology domain. This kind of transformation is one component of a more general model-driven approach to solve business process interoperability problems or, more widely still, integration problems. More precisely, the paper describes a UML Profile definition used to transform GRAI Grids into UML Use Case Diagrams. The transformation has been implemented with the Atlas Transformation Language and the results are discussed.

Product data markup language: a new paradigm for product data exchange and integration

Product Data Markup Language (PDML) is a set of XML vocabularies and a usage structure for deploying product data on the Internet and making it visible to DoD weapon system support personnel. PDML offers a new paradigm for product data exchange based on existing technology that facilitates the integration and interoperability of business processes across the DoD and contracting organizations, particularly among those using PDM systems for process control and product data management. The Internet provides a ubiquitous platform for connectivity; XML provides a web-friendly and well-understood syntax for the exchange of data; and STEP/ISO 10303 provides a methodology for satisfying and integrating the information needs of the diverse collection of data-usage communities that comprise the DoD weapon system support personnel.PDML defines a set of Application Transaction Sets (ATS) that define the data requirements for communities defined by the users of particular legacy systems and standards. The Integration Schema is an encompassing generalization of the ATSs that provides an integrated view across the ATSs. Mapping specifications define the relationships between the specialized vocabularies in the ATSs and the generic vocabulary in the Integration Schema.