Michael Friess

A Platform Independent Model for Service Oriented Architectures

Gorka Benguria, European Software Institute, Parque Tecnologico de Zamudio, E48170 Zamudio-Bizkaia, Spain, gorka.benguria@esi.es Xabier Larrucea, European Software Institute, Parque Tecnologico de Zamudio, E48170 Zamudio-Bizkaia, Spain, xabier.larrucea@esi.es Brian Elvesaeter, SINTEF ICT, Cooperative and Trusted Systems, P. O. Box 124 Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway, brian.elvesater@sintef.no Tor Neple, SINTEF ICT, Cooperative and Trusted Systems, P. O. Box 124 Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway, tor.neple@sintef.no Anthony Beardsmore, IBM United Kingdom Limited, MP 127, Hursley Park, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England, abeards@uk.ibm.co.uk Michael Friess, IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH, Germany, mfriess@de.ibm.com

An Incremental Approach to the Analysis and Transformation of Workflows Using Region Trees

The analysis of workflows in terms of structural correctness is important for ensuring the quality of workflow models. Typically, this analysis is only one step in a larger development process, followed by further transformation steps that lead from high-level models to more refined models until the workflow can finally be deployed on the underlying workflow engine of the production system. For practical and scalable applications, both analysis and transformation of workflows must be integrated to allow incremental changes of larger workflows. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a region tree (RT) for workflow models that can be used as the central data structure for both workflow analysis and workflow transformation. An RT is similar to a program structure tree and imposes a hierarchy of regions as an overlay structure onto the workflow model. It allows an incremental approach to the analysis and transformation of workflows, and thereby, significantly reduces the overhead because individual regions can be dealt with separately. The RT is built using a set of region-growing rules. The set of rules presented here is shown to be correct and complete in the sense that a workflow is region-reducible as defined through these rules if and only if it is semantically sound.

Combining Analysis of Unstructured Workflows with Transformation to Structured Workflows

Analysis of workflows in terms of structural correctness is important for ensuring the quality of workflow models. Typically, this analysis is only one step in a larger development process, followed by further transformation steps that lead from high-level models to more refined models until the workflow can finally be deployed on the underlying workflow engine of the production system. For practical and scalable applications, analysis and transformations of workflows must both be integrated to allow incremental changes of larger workflows. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a region tree for workflow models that can be used as the central data structure for both workflow analysis and workflow transformation. A region tree is similar to a program structure tree and imposes a hierarchy of regions onto the workflow model. It allows an incremental approach to analysis and transformation of workflows and thereby significantly reduces the overhead because individual regions can be dealt with separately