Balbir Barn

LEAP: a precise lightweight framework for enterprise architecture

This paper proposes LEAP, a simple framework for Enterprise Architecture (EA) that views an organization as an engine that executes in terms of hierarchically decomposed communicating components. The approach allows all aspects of the architecture to be precisely defined using standard modelling notations. Given that the approach is simple and precisely defined it can form the basis for a wide range of EA analysis techniques including simulation, compliance and consistency checking. The paper defines the LEAP framework and shows that it can be used to represent the key features of ArchiMate whilst containing fewer orthogonal concepts. We also show that the precision of LEAP, achieved through the use of OCL, can be used to verify both the claims made for inter-layer relationships in EA models and for extensions to ArchiMate.

A Method for Enterprise Architecture Alignment

Business and ICT strategic alignment remains an ongoing challenge facing organizations as they react to changing requirements by adapting or introducing new technologies to existing infrastructure. Enterprise Architecture (EA) has increasingly become relevant to these demands and as a consequence numerous methods and frameworks have emerged. However these approaches remain bloated, time-consuming and lacking in precision. This paper proposes a light-weight method for EA called LEAP and introduces a language for EA simulation that is illustrated with a detailed case study of business change currently being addressed by UK higher education institutions.

A common basis for modelling service-oriented and event-driven architecture

Component based approaches to Enterprise Architecture (EA) include Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Event Driven Architecture (EDA). Model-based approaches to EA support SOA in terms of components and services expressed as interfaces and messages. However, there are few modelbased approaches that support EDA even though SOA and EDA are both based on components. UML has components, however there is no support for events and no support for component patterns (or templates). This paper describes a simple extension to UML that supports both SOA and EDA. Components have both operation and event interfaces. The modelling language is implemented using a higher-order simulation language where templates are defined as functions over component definitions. The languages are described using a case study that has been implemented in Java.

Toward overcoming accidental complexity in organisational decision-making

This paper takes a practitioners perspective on the problem of organisational decision-making. Industry practice follows a refinement based iterative method for organizational decision-making. However, existing enterprise modelling tools are not complete with respect to the needs of organizational decision-making. As a result, today, a decision maker is forced to use a chain of non-interoperable tools supporting paradigmatically diverse modelling languages with the onus of their co-ordinated use lying entirely on the decision maker. This paper argues the case for a model-based approach to overcome this accidental complexity. A bridge meta-model, specifying relationships across models created by individual tools, ensures integration and a method, describing what should be done when and how, and ensures better tool integration. Validation of the proposed solution using a case study is presented with current limitations and possible means of overcoming them outlined.

Modelling and Enterprises - The Past, the Present and the Future

Industry has been practicing model-driven development in various flavours. In general it can be said that modelling and use of models have delivered on the promises of platform independence, enhanced productivity, and delivery certainty as regards development of software-intensive systems. Globalization market forces, increased regulatory compliance, ever-increasing penetration of internet, and rapid advance of technology are some of the key drivers leading to increased business dynamics. Increased number of factors impacting the decision and interdependency amongst the key drivers is leading to increased complexity in making business decisions. Also, enterprise software systems need to commensurately change to quickly support the business decisions. The paper presents synthesis of our experience over a decade and half in developing model-driven development technology and using it to deliver several business-critical software systems worldwide.

A Simulation-based Aid for Organisational Decision-making

Effective decision-making of modern organisation often requires deep understanding of various aspects of organisation such as organisational goals, organisational structure, business-as-usual operational processes. The large size of the organisation, its socio-technical characteristics, and fast business dynamics make this endeavor challenging. Industry practice relies on human experts for comprehending various aspects of organisation thus making organisational decision-making a time-, effort- and intellectually-intensive endeavor. This paper proposes a model-based simulation approach to organisational decision-making. We illustrate how this is applied to a real life problem from software service industry.

Towards connecting people, locations and real-world events in a cellular network

CDRs containing voice-calls and SMS activities from a cellular network in Senegal.Large-scale CDR datasets collected over one year from randomly sampled customers.The study analyses the telecommunication traffic flows patterns.Exceptional spatio-temporal patterns are correlated to real-world events. The success of personal mobile communication technologies has led an emerging expansion of the telecommunication infrastructure but also to an explosion to mobile broadband data traffic as more and more people completely rely on their mobile devices, either for work or entertainment. The continuously interaction of their mobile devices with the mobile network infrastructure creates digital traces that can be easily logged by the network operators. These digital traces can be further used, apart from billing and resource management, for large-scale population monitoring using mobile traffic analysis. They could be integrated into intelligent systems that could help at detecting exceptional events such as riots, protests or even at disaster preventions with minimal costs and improve people safety and security, or even save lives. In this paper we study the use of fully anonymized and highly aggregate cellular network data, like Call Detail Records (CDRs) to analyze the telecommunication traffic and connect people, locations and events. The results show that by analyzing the CDR data exceptional spatio-temporal patterns of mobile data can be correlated to real-world events. For example, high user network activity was mapped to religious festivals, such as Ramadan, Le Grand Magal de Touba and the Tivaouane Maouloud festival. During the Ramadan period it was noticed that the communication pattern doubled during the night with a slow start during the morning and along the day. Furthermore, a peak increase in the number of voice calls and voice calls duration in the area of Kafoutine was mapped to the Casamance Conflict in the area which resulted in four deaths. Thus, these observations could be further used to develop an intelligent system that detects exceptional events in real-time from CDRs data monitoring. Such system could be used in intelligent transportation management, urban planning, emergency situations, network resource allocation and performance optimization, etc.

Enterprise Modeling as a Decision Making Aid: A Systematic Mapping Study

This paper reviews the state-of-the-art enterprise modelling (EM) techniques with an objective to support decision-making. It describes a Systematic Mapping Study based on 173 publications chosen from 7622 EM related publications collated using five digital libraries: Scopus, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect and Web of Science. The study identifies 29 EM techniques and critically analyses them for suitability as an effective aid to complex dynamic decision-making vis-a-vis a set of characteristics. The paper also reports EM publications trends and the challenges aimed at providing effective aids to complex dynamic decision making.

Towards a comprehensive Meta-Model for KAOS

Goal Oriented Modelling (GOM) has proved very useful in Software Engineering. KAOS is a popular language for GOM, and has been applied in requirement analysis, specification, and elicitation. Model Based Software Engineering (MBSE) technologies have traditionally addressed the what and how of systems but have offered little support for why. A solution is to extend MBSE languages with GOM, and KAOS in particular, thereby allowing goals to take part in model transformation and analysis. However, there is no complete Meta-Model for KAOS that would be suitable for such an integration. This paper analyses existing work on KAOS language definition and consolidates it into a single Meta-Model, defined in Ecore, that is suitable as a basis for MBSE; and then implements a Graphical Editor for the Meta-Model using MBSE Techniques. The Graphical Editor is applied to model a case study described in the paper. Our Meta-Model is validated by showing how OCL can be used to encode the definition of the completeness of a KAOS model.

Event driven architecture modelling and simulation

Enterprise Architecture (EA) Modelling aims to analyze an organization in terms of its components, IT systems and business processes. Current modelling approaches are based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) whereby components publish interfaces of operations that are used via message passing. It has been argued that SOA leads to tight coupling between components and does not handle complex component interactions, with resulting maintenance difficulties. Event Driven Architecture (EDA) is an alternative strategy, based on listening for events, that is designed to address SOA shortcomings. However, there are no EA modelling technologies based on EDA. This paper reviews EA, SOA and EDA, identifies EDA characteristic features and proposes modelling and simulation technologies that are introduced through a simple case study.