Bernhard Holtkamp

VINCA – A Visual and Personalized Business-Level Composition Language for Chaining Web-Based Services

The paper presents a service composition language called VINCA, which differs from many existing ones in its emphasis on enabling business users to visually “program” from business view-point their personalized applications on the basis of Web-based services. VINCA embodies an integrated approach to mediating between diverse, rapidly changing user requirements and composites of individual services scattered over the Internet. The approach is targeted at application scenarios that require Web-based services be quickly assembled by non-computer professionals to fulfill certain spontaneous requirements. VINCA is developed within a real-world project for developing a service mediation platform for the Olympic Games Beijing 2008, on which an effective information system providing personalized and one-stop information services to the general public, should be based. In this paper, we introduce the main features and design rationales of VINCA with a scenario, and also discuss its implementation and application.

Towards a Logistics Cloud

This paper describes an approach for the development of a logistics cloud as a “vertical cloud”. In contrast to a generic or “horizontal cloud” components of the cloud platform are custom tailored to the specific needs of the logistics application area. The NIST cloud services model serves as a basis for structuring logistics specific cloud service requirements. In the next step the domain specific model is used as a basis for the development of Logistics Mall, a domain specific cloud platform for the trading and usage of logistics IT services and logistics processes. The paper closes with an overview of the implementation status and an outlook to future work.

A successful field test of a mobile and multilingual information service system COMPASS2008

We will describe a field test and its evaluation of a truly novel type of mobile computer programs that will assist foreign tourists in their communication with Chinese people. The software is an electronic phrase book and a translation aid but at the same time a powerful multilingual information system connected to numerous services via the Internet. It effectively helps visitors to navigate through the streets, temples and shopping centres of the Beijing megalopolis. It was developed in the German-Chinese project COMPASS 2008, a research action within the Digital Olympics framework. The subjects of the field test were fifteen tourists from seven countries. The test concentrated on usability and acceptance. The applied methodology adapts recognized standards and widely accepted best practice to the specific application type.

The Logistics Mall—An IT-Architecture for Logistics-as-a-Product

The Logistics Mall extends the cloud service model from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to Business Process-as-a-Service (BPaaS). Its architecture, hence, spans from a web-based public B2B marketplace for simple apps, traditional applications and even logistics process templates to customer-specific cloud based execution environments for instantiated process models and therein included applications. For communication with the mall outside world a specific gateway is provided that controls inbound and outbound message flow.

Experiences with Situation Aware Service Provision

A growing number of frameworks and middleware for context aware application exists as prototypes. Only little information with practical deployment is available. The COMPASS system has been developed as a platform for multilingual, personalized and situation aware provision of mobile services to help visitors of the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing. In a field test a group of external users tested the COMPASS system in its target environment. This paper describes some results of the field test regarding situation aware service provision.

Service roaming in mobile applications

The evolution of wireless network technology has led to an increasing number of applications for mobile use. In addition, the paradigm of service-oriented architectures allows a composition of applications based on distributed web services. By using registries it becomes possible to choose the appropriate services at runtime. It needs to be considered that services for mobile use may have different scopes. For instance, routing or weather services may be dedicated to a specific region so that they may be useless if a users area of interest does not match the services scope. It is hence necessary to identify and use those services with a scope that corresponds to the relevant context such as a users location. Moreover, if the context changes, it is desirable to automatically switch between different equivalent service instances to provide a user with a continuous connection to a desired service. We denote this mechanism as service roaming. This paper presents the major concepts needed for service roaming as well as a roaming model based on n-dimensional context spaces.

Object-Management Machines: Concept and Implementation

The software development process deals with a wide variety of documents. For the preparation of these documents, as well as for their maintenance, appropriate data management support is requested, resulting in the coexistence of multiple object management systems within a single, advanced software development environment. In order to homogenize data management in software development environments we present the object management machine (OMM) concept as an integration framework for preexisting data management systems. An object management machine enables the creation of uniform access patterns to different data management systems, including the query interface and transaction processing. The concept is being developed in the framework of the EUREKA project ESF (EUREKA Software Factory)1. To make it operational we demonstrate the suitability of the MUSE multidatabase integrator as an implementation framework for the Object Management Machine concept.

Technische Innovationen als Mittel zum arbeitsintegrierten Lernen in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen des Einzelhandels

Technische Innovationen wie Tablet-PC, Smartphones und Beacons sind heute in der Gesellschaft akzeptiert und breit verfugbar. Diese Technologien ermoglichen neue Geschaftsmodelle und Anwendungen. In dem Verbundprojekt HANDELkompetent wird die Nutzbarkeit dieser Technologien fur das arbeitsintegrierte Lernen, insbesondere in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) des Einzelhandels, untersucht. Die grundsatzlichen Anforderungen der Handelsunternehmen werden im Verbundvorhaben HANDELkompetent bei den Umsetzungspartnern erhoben und hier anhand eines Fallbeispiels dargestellt. Darauf aufbauend wird ein Konzept fur das betriebliche Kompetenzmanagement erarbeitet. Die Kompetenzentwicklung im Unternehmen wird durch Lern-Tandems und die Verankerung von Kompetenzpaten organisatorisch unterstutzt sowie uber arbeitsintegriertes Lernen realisiert, indem die Lerninhalte technisch unterstutzt aufbereitet und situationsabhangig bereitgestellt werden.

Kompetenzentwicklung der Zukunft: Forschung – Praxis – Politik

In diesem abschliesenden Beitrag, der von einem Autorenkollektiv der beiden Fokusgruppen verfasst wurde, werden aus den Verbundprojekten prospektive Uberlegungen zu Arbeit, Kompetenzentwicklung und Innovation extrahiert. Den Projektarchitekturen entsprechend werden Desiderate von Beteiligten aus Wissenschaft und betrieblicher Praxis sowie von arbeitsmarkt-, sozial- und wirtschaftspolitischen Akteuren/-innen perspektivengeleitet zusammengestellt. Sie basieren auf den Erfahrungen und Erkenntnissen, die aus zwei- bis dreijahrigen Erprobungslaufzeiten der jeweiligen Projekte gewonnen werden konnten.

Domain-Specific Individualization of Workflows

The virtualization of IT services by using software-as-a-service offers imposes the problem of correct service usage. Often an application level protocol has to be followed to assure logically correct workflows. This paper presents a domain-specific approach for the specification of such application level protocols. A domain ontology is combined with a formal protocol specification language to enable correct usage patterns even for dynamically adapted workflows to support individual needs.