Service Modeling and Composition

Project duration
January 2002 - April 2005

Short description
E-business processes are typically developed by composing internal processes and external processes offered by service providers. Whereas e-service integration has received considerable interest recently, the relationship between the behavior of the composite process and the behavior of the constituting service processes has not yet been thoroughly investigated.
It is natural to expect that the behaviors of the composite process and the service processes are related as follows:
  • The composite process synchronizes the execution of activities from different service processes.
  • The composite process provides a complete overview of the service processes in that business transactions can be tracked ("observed") over their entire life time across all services.
  • If an activity can be invoked according to the composite process, it can be successfully invoked in the respective service process.
  • The description of the composite process, focussing on coordination, abstracts from local details as far as possible.

Based on these requirements, the projects deals with the following problems:
  • Introduction of formal correctness criteria for business-process composition
  • Introduction of algorithms for composition based on the correctness criteria
  • Workbench for translating existing service processes into a conceptual service definition language and for monitoring and controlling the execution of business cases according to the composite business process

Project team
Günter Preuner (DKE)

Publications
G. Preuner, M. Schrefl:
Integration of Web-Services into Workflows through a Multi-Level Schema Architecture
In: Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Issues of E-Commerce and Web-Based Information Systems (WECWIS 2002), Newport Beach, Calif., U.S.A., June 26-28, 2002, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 51-60, 2002.
G. Preuner, M. Schrefl:
Behavior-consistent Composition of Business Processes From Internal and External Services
In: A. Olivé, M. Yoshikawa, E. Yu (eds.): Proceedings of the ER 2002 Workshops - ECDM, MobIMod, IWCMQ, and eCOMO, Tampere, Finland, October 7-11, 2002, Springer Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 2784), pp. 378-389, ISBN 3-540-20255-2, 2003.
G. Preuner, C. Eichinger, M. Schrefl:
Static-Dynamic Integration of External Services into Generic Business Processes
In: M. Bouzeghoub, C. Goble, V. Kashyap, S. Spaccapietra (eds.): Semantics of a Networked World: Semantics for Grid Databases, Proceedings of the 1st International IFIP Conference on Semantics of a Networked World - Semantics for Grid Databases (ICSNW 2004), Paris, France, June 17-19, 2004, Springer Verlag, LNCS Vol. 3226, ISBN 3-540-23609-0, pp. 263-277, 2004.
G. Preuner, M. Schrefl:
Requester-centered Composition of Business Processes from Internal and External Services
In: Journal Data & Knowledge Engineering, Special Issue on Collaborative Business Process Technologies, Elsevier Science B.V., vol. 52, no. 1, January 2005, pp. 121-155, 2005.
S. Scharinger:
B2L - Ein Übersetzer von BPEL for Web Services in Labeled Behavior Diagrams
(Master Thesis, 2005)
Diplomarbeit, Betreuung: o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Michael Schrefl, unter Anleitung von Dr. Günter Preuner, ausgeführt an der Universität Linz, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik - Data & Knowledge Engineering, März 2005.
R. Spitzbart:
Prototype Implementation for Composition and Simulation of Business Processes
(Master Thesis, 2005)
Diplomarbeit, Betreuung: o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Michael Schrefl, unter Anleitung von Dr. Günter Preuner und Mag. Andreas Bögl, ausgeführt an der Universität Linz, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik - Data & Knowledge Engineering, Juni 2005.
G. Tonkov:
LBD Builder: A Tool for Design and Composition of Business Processes
(Master Thesis, 2003)
Diplomarbeit, Betreuung: o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Michael Schrefl, unter Anleitung von Dr. Günter Preuner, ausgeführt an der Universität Linz, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik - Data & Knowledge Engineering, Juni 2003.
S. Wolschlager:
Vergleich von Sprachen zur Definition von Web Services im Hinblick auf Geschäftsprozessmodellierung
(Master Thesis, 2004)
Diplomarbeit, Betreuung: o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Michael Schrefl, unter Anleitung von Dr. Günter Preuner, ausgeführt an der Universität Linz, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik - Data & Knowledge Engineering, April 2004.