Towards semantic modelling Towards semantic modelling of business processes of business processes
for networked enterprisesfor networked enterprises
Karol Furdik1, Marian Mach2, Tomas Sabol3
1 InterSoft, a.s., Florianska 19, 040 01 Kosice, [email protected]
2 Dept. of Cybernetics and AI, Technical University of Kosice, [email protected]
3 Faculty of Economics, Technical University of Kosice, [email protected]
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
ContentsContents
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Introduction, motivation
Project SPIKE: basic facts, vision
System architecture, data elements
Principles explained: Semantic annotation
Business process modelling
Ontology design, requirement-driven approach
BP modelling in SPIKE: Technology used
Steps of semantic BP modelling
Example: Identity Federation application case
Conclusions, future work
MotivationMotivation
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Approach to the semantic modelling and annotation of BPs as it was designed within the EU project SPIKE to support creation and maintenance of short-term business alliances and
networked enterprises
Related projects: STASIS (FP6-034980, www.stasis-project.net): eEconomy services,
semantic interoperability; TrustCom (FP6-001945, www.eu-trustcom.com): framework for Virtual
Organisations; OPUCE (FP6-034101, www.opuce.tid.es): service environment,
infrastructure for collaborative and dynamic loosely coupled services; SUPER (FP6-026850, www.ip-super.org): modular architecture for
semantic BPM. other projects and research groups focused on SWS, Security, Identity
Management and Privacy, Process-Oriented Knowledge Management, etc.
Project SPIKE - Basic factsProject SPIKE - Basic facts
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
SPIKE: Secure Process-oriented Integrative Service Infrastructure for Networked Enterprises
Web: www.spike-project.eu FP7 ICT EU project, FP7-2007-217098
FP7-ICT-Call1, Challenge 1 - Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures, ICT in support of the networked enterprise
Duration: 01/2008 – 12/2010 (36 months) Consortium: 8 partners from 5 countries (GE,A,FIN,ESP,SK)
Coordinator: University of Regensburg, GE Budget: 2.8 mil. EUR, EC Contribution: 2 mil. EUR Effort: 351 person-months 3 Pilot applications in Austria and Finland
Main objective: Development of a software service platform for the easy, secure, and fast
start-up of short-term and project-based virtual business alliances.
SPIKE vision (1)SPIKE vision (1)
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Networked Enterprise
SPIKE Conceptual Layer
SPIKE vision (2)SPIKE vision (2)
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Networked Enterprise
SPIKE Conceptual Layer
SPIKE Service Layer
Architecture - system componentsArchitecture - system components
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Data elementsData elements
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Semantic annotationSemantic annotation
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Association of a data portion with the ontology concepts
Business process modellingBusiness process modelling
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Standards: BPMN / BPEL representation
Semantic enhancement: BPMO, sBPMN, sBPEL ontologies outcomes of the FP6 EU project SUPER available in the WSMO platform
Building the semantic BP frameworkBuilding the semantic BP framework
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Tasks required: Methodology for designing the ontology
Ontology development, implementation, maintenance
Visual BP modelling, transformation to executable BPEL
Semantic annotation of BP elements (tasks, services)
Resources for the ontology design: Conceptual model, determined by implementation platform (defined data
elements, BPMO, sBPEL, WSMO Lite ontologies)
Existing ontologies (Dublin Core, WSMO ontologies, SKOS, vCard, SIOC,
ontologies of project SUPER, etc.)
User requirements, systematically collected and formalised
Requirement-driven approach (1)Requirement-driven approach (1)
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Step 1. Identify the information needs Output: Textual description of the application case.
Step 2. Identify required information quality Output: Specification of the relevant BPs and episodes,
co-operating participants (process actors), activities (services), and artefacts.
Step 3. Create a glossary of topics and terms Output: Glossary of relevant topics and terms in a table
format.
Step 4. Create a controlled vocabulary Output: Controlled vocabulary - hierarchy of terms,
created from the glossary by grouping the terms into the hierarchical subgroups.
Requirement-driven approach (2)Requirement-driven approach (2)
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Step 5. Group and relate terms Output: Ontology-like structure that includes the relations
and dependencies between the concepts.
Step 6. Design the resource ontology Output: A formally expressed ontology in WSML format.
Step 7. Implementation of the semantics Output: Formal representation of ontology, enhanced by
the workflow structures. The "business rules" as input and output specifications, conditional if-then-else expressions, loops, and workflow sequences are added as enhancements of the ontology elements.
These enhancements are especially applied to describe a dynamic behavior of services, namely by their choreography, orchestration, and capability interfaces.
Step 8. Validation on real-world data (optional)
Technology for semantic BPMTechnology for semantic BPM
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Open Source, Java-based
BPMN/BPEL for BP modelling: BPMO Modeller (of WSMO Studio) for visual BP
modelling
Automatic transformation to the executable BPEL
sBPEL ontology for semantic representation of BPs
WSMO framework for semantic modelling: WSMO Lite - basic conceptual framework
WSML ontology representation
WSMO Studio (www.wsmostudio.org) for general ontology maintenance
Annotation tool for semantic annotation of information resources
Steps of semantic BPM in SPIKESteps of semantic BPM in SPIKE
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
1. Design of an abstract non-executable business process, using a visual tool for BPMN business process modelling. Specification of the pools and lanes corresponding to the business entities that interact in a collaborative process.
2. Specification of flow objects (events, activities, gateways), connecting objects (sequences, messages, associations), and artefacts (data objects, groups, textual annotations). Specification of the sub-processes for each of the complex activities.
3. Identification of services and their types (Semantic Web services, Web services, electronic services, asynchronous off-line or on-line services) for each of the activities specified in the abstract process.
4. Semantic annotation of services. Specification of the capability interface for services: inputs, outputs, preconditions, effects. Data flow between the services.
5. Identification and semantic description of the information resources (artefacts - documents, messages, etc.) produced or consumed by the services.
6. Automatic transformation into an executable BPEL representation.
7. Rule-based mapping to the BPMO ontology.
8. Identification and semantic description of the actors that are participating as providers or consumers on the services and are manipulating with the artefacts.
Example: Identity federation AC (1)Example: Identity federation AC (1)
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
1. Input: Textual description & basic process schema:
2. Controlled vocabulary: Concepts identified with their properties: 3. WSML Ontology created:
Example: Identity federation AC (2)Example: Identity federation AC (2)
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
4. Abstract process model designed:
5. BP implemented in BPMO Modeller, sub-processes, artefacts and services identified and annotated:
6. Resulting BP ontology provided for platform - it is ready for BPEL transformation and execution:
ConclusionsConclusions
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
Work done so far: User requirements and application cases specified for all the pilots;
Guidelines, methodology and toolchain for semantic mark-up of the processes and resources provided, development of ontologies and BP models is in progress;
Architecture of the platform designed, functional components identified and described in their mutual interactions, detailed specification created, technology frameworks identified, implementation is ongoing.
Future work: System implementation: 1st prototype (09/09) Semantic BP modelling: Development of the resource ontologies and BP
models (09/09) 1st trial of the pilot applications, validation of the SPIKE platform on the
application cases (10-12/09)
Questions?Questions?
DEXA EC-Web 09 : 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web TechnologiesLinz, Austria, 1 - 4 September 2009
More info: http://www.spike-project.eu