Marten Schönherr

A Flexible Approach to Service Management-Related Service Description in SOAs

In order for service-oriented architectures (SOAs) to deliver their true value for the business, e.g. flexibility and transparency, a holistic service management needs to be set up in the enterprise. To perform all the service management tasks efficiently heavy support by automated processes and tools is necessary. This article describes a service description approach that is based on OWL-S (Web Ontology Language for Services) and focuses on nonfunctional criteria. It starts with the necessary service management tasks and explains non-functional data elements and statements for its automated support. After covering related work it explains the proposed flexible extension to OWL-S. This extension is twofold. Firstly, simple service lifecycle elements are added using the normal extension mechanism. Secondly for adding QoS (Quality of Service) capabilities, the approach combines this extension mechanism with UML (Unified Modeling Language) Profile for QoS. A prototype delivers the proof-of-concept.

Status quo geschäftsprozessorientierter Architekturintegration

KernpunkteHauptziel von IT-Architekten großer Unternehmen ist die Integration und Anpassung komplexer IT an die fachlichen Anforderungen zu minimalen Kosten.Ein aktueller prozessorientierter Ansatz zur Lösung dieser Herausforderung ist Enterprise Application Integration (EAI).Unsere Studie zum Einsatz von EAI in Unternehmen erbrachte folgende Ergebnisse:⊎ Die EAI-Einführung bringt organisatorische Veränderungen mit sich.⊎ Trotzdem wird der prozessorientierte Aspekt in der Praxis nicht berücksichtigt,organisatorische nderungen sind nicht intendiert.⊎ Dies liegt u.a.an dem Verständnis und der organisatorischen Verankerung von EAI als IT-Thema denn als Architekturthema.AbstractToday large companies often have to cope with complex and heterogeneous IT infrastructures. The main target of IT architects being responsible for those architectures is to align IT to business needs at the lowest costs possible. A recent approach to this issue is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Our study examines how EAI is used in large-scale companies and which effects it has on the organizational architecture of those companies. The results illustrate that EAI is a major component in complex IT infrastructures which has a significant influence on business processes. But the study also shows that there is a considerable gap between the importance of EAI in enterprise architecture and the way it is used in companies today. Eventually this article points out what has to be done to come closer to an internally sustainable enterprise architecture.

Model driven service domain analysis

Currently scientists and practitioners are discussing Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) as an approach to reconcile business requirements and IT. The alignment of business and technology in organizations is a key challenge in the discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA). Therefore the contribution starts with a discussion of SOA as an EA integration concept to synchronize business requirements and IT architecture in an efficient way. Differentiating methodological and technological aspects of EA the paper shows the need for methods in the field of domain analysis supporting the design of a SOA. The main contribution of the paper is an algorithm based modeling tool and methodology to support service domain clustering. Service clusters are being used for service definition and management. Due to enormous complexity it is necessary to support architects by finding and defining appropriate clusters. For modeling interdependencies in EA the papers focus is on business processes, information systems and interfaces. Our approach adopts network-centric algorithms used in the field of social network analysis to define and/or identify service domain clusters in complex scenarios. Edge remover algorithm is used to compute the relevant model aspects. The results of our approach will be demonstrated in a case study.

Evaluating integration architectures – a scenario-based evaluation of integration technologies

A major aspect of complex Enterprise Architectures is the integration of existing heterogeneous IT-systems in a business process oriented way. The paper starts with the definition of terms as Enterprise Architecture and process orientation. Based on an empirical study the paper shows that there is no significant business process orientation in information system integration projects. Among other reasons this is due to deficits in understanding and managing integration methods and technologies. Therefore the paper addresses the evaluation and comparison of relevant integration architectures as a first step to work on that issue. The paper differentiates individually coded interfaces, centralized hub&spoke and distributed approaches based on standardized interface descriptions (Service Oriented Architecture – SOA). The mentioned empirical study was extended by an action research based prototyping to assure a reliable evaluation and comparison of the three integration architectures. To make them comparable they have been implemented in the same fictitious business scenario which is described briefly. The paper finally compares the integration architectures with a set of 11 criteria which summarize over 400 variables taken into consideration in the evaluation process. The conclusion of the paper is not a solution but a suggestion for further research.

Implementing non-functional service descriptions in SOAs

This article describes a framework for extended service descriptions based on OWL-S (Web Ontology Language for Services) focusing on nonfunctional criteria. Necessary service management tasks will be introduced and extended by corresponding data elements and statements for its automated support. After a short comparative description of several existing approaches to semantic service descriptions the paper addresses the actual extension of OWL-S. Non-functional extensions as service lifecycle elements and Quality of Services (QoS) are added. To extend QoS capabilities, the approach combines the common extension mechanism with UML (Unified Modeling Language) Profile for QoS. A prototype delivers the proof-of-concept for the first part of the extension. The prototype implements SOA-specific authentications and all basic features for a tool-supported service management using extended semantic service descriptions by defining an ontology-based service taxonomy and service annotation.

Komponentenbasiertes EAI-Framework unter Einsatz und Erweiterung von Web Services

Der Beitrag beschreibt die Moglichkeiten der im Konzept von Webservices verwendeten Standards und Architekturspezifikationen zur Unterstutzung von Systemintegrationsprojekten. Probleme, die durch proprietare EAI-Standardsoftware entstehen, konnen durch Webservice- und komponentenbasierte Architekturen teilweise oder ganz behoben werden. Dafur werden Grundlagen, fachliche Anforderungen und Ziele von EAI-Projekten kurz beschrieben. Den technischen Standards des Webservice-Konzeptes folgen notwendige Erweiterungen der Architektur, um integrative Aspekte unerstutzen zu konnen. Der Beitrag schliest mit einem Ausblick auf notwendige Entwicklungen und zukunftige Potentiale, die durch eine umfassende Verwendung von Webservices in EAI-Projekten entstehen.

Transformation einer industriell geprägten Unternehmensstruktur zu einer service- und wissensbasierten Organisation

Unternehmungen sind heute wie fruher den vielschichtigen Veranderungen ihrer Umfelder ausgesetzt. Als aktuelle Herausforderungen hervorgehoben seien hier die Globalisierung, Technisierung und Okologisierung1 verbunden mit einer wachsenden Dynamik und Komplexitat.2 Die daraus folgende Notwendigkeit schneller und zugleich fundierter Entscheidungen verknupft mit dem kontinuierlich steigenden Druck zu Produkt- und Prozessinnovationen stellt damit hohe Anforderungen an die Reagibilitat der eigenen Fuhrungs-, Leistungs- und Unterstutzungsprozesse und ist ein akutes Managementproblem (Abbildung 1).

Connecting EAI-Domains Via SOA— Central vs. Distributed Approaches to Establish Flexible Architectures

The article defines adaptability as the main target to solve the problem of enterprise architecture sustainability. Flexibility is an important steering mechanism to develop adaptability. Organisational modularisation is used to flexibilise enterprise structures. Business processes are changing permanently according to business requirements. Unfortunately it is a matter of fact that IT is disabling this business-driven change. Integration Technology is being introduced to improve the situation. Establishing step by step a multi service integration architecture creates new issues as handling internal charging routines, service monitoring and service life cycle management. The CC for EAI at Technical University is working on an approach and prototype of a service management module adressing the mentioned issues.

Decoupling of Heterogeneous Semantic Service Annotations and Their Semantic Models --- Towards an Integrated Approach in a Multi-Service-Provider-Scenario

The introduction of Service-Oriented Architectures often promises effective and efficient service support of the organizations business processes. Matching and combining the right services to support the processes can only be ensured, if the service functionalities are semantically annotated. However, service discovery within heterogeneous annotations can become a problem. The following paper introduces an integrated approach to deal with heterogeneous semantic annotations of different service providers. Based on deduction from the state-of-the-art of semantic annotations for services, the developed approach establishes four strategies as the prerequisites for a common search base.

Integration von Technologie und Management aus Sicht der Wissenschaft

Technologieentscheidungen haben einen fundamentalen Einfluss auf den Erfolg bzw. Misserfolg unternehmerischen Handelns. Deshalb uberrascht es nicht, dass viele technikgetriebene Unternehmen eine konsequente Technologiepolitik verfolgen. Allerdings zeigt sich in der Praxis, dass auch ein systematisch aufgebautes Technologiemanagement nicht in jedem Fall zu steigenden Aktienkursen fuhrt. Schering liefert ein Erfolgsbeispiel fur eine Technologiepolitik, die der Kapitalmarkt honoriert hat. Dadurch dass man kontinuierlich auf technologische Entwicklungen gesetzt hat und es gelungen ist, Analysten, Fondsmanager und Aktionare von der Attraktivitat der technologischen Entwicklungen zu uberzeugen, hat sich der Aktienkurs im Vergleich zur Konkurrenz gunstig entwickelt (vgl. Heeg 2002, S. 51).