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Business Process Management
Fr
Meets
Semantic Web
Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche, Zhilei Ma,
Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann
Institute of Architecture of Application Systems (IAAS), University of Stuttgart, Germany
tammo.van.lessen@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de

IAAS
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 2

IAAS (University of Stuttgart)
Institute of Architecture of Application Systems
Founded in September 2004
Director: Prof. Dr. Frank Leymann
13 research associates at present
5 external researchers
Web: www.iaas.uni-stuttgart.de
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 3

Research Focus in SOA / Web Services
Co-authoring Standards (OASIS, W3C)
QoS in Web services
Semantic Web services (EU projects)
Service Level Agreements
Management of SLAs
SLA Aggregation/Negotiation
Service Composition (BPEL)
SOA in industry environments (in cooperation
with Daimler Chrysler)
Software as a Service / Cloud computing
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 4

Research Focus in BPM und EAI
Business Processes
BPEL (Standard, Extensions)
Coordination protocols
Transactions
Human Task Management
Semantic Business Process Management
Choreography
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
Integration of Applications, Middleware and Processes
Architecture
e.g. EAI Patterns
Technologies
e.g. WS-*, SCA, Messaging, ESB, Spaces
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 5

Business Process
Management & Semantic Web
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 6

SUPER: Overview
SUPER: Semantics Utilised for Process management
within and between EnteRprises
EU Integrated Project (IP)
Program: Information and Society Technologies
Begin: April 2006
Duration: 36 months
Funding: ~16,4 Million €
19 Partners, ~60 Researchers
Consortium: SAP, CEFRIEL, Etel, Hanival, IBIS Prof. Thome,
IBM, IDS Scheer, iSOCO, LFU Innsbruck, MIP, NUI Galway,
Nexcom, Ontotext/Sirma, Open University, Telefonica,
Telekomunikacja Polska, Poznan University, TU Eindhoven,
University of Stuttgart
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 7

What are my Services?
Here is my business process!
I think this solves my business
problem nicely…
A1 A2 A3 A4
Nice try, but it won’t run…
You need to specify the services that
perform each step!
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 8

What are my services?
I don’t understand about these
technical details! This is my view on
the process…
A1 A2 A3 A4
pT1 pT2 pT3
o.k. no problem, I will help you…
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 9

What are my services?
This is cumbersome!
Why do I always need IT staff to solve my
business problems?
It takes too long to get these folks, they use
different terminology than I do…
I am happy to describe what the activities do in
my terms.
Can the system be smart enough and find the
right services itself???
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 10

The Business-IT-Gap
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 11

Semantic Business Process Lifecycle
Same phases as in BPM,
but…
Increase of automation
Semantic Annotation
degree within the phases
SBP Mining Auto-Completion
SBP Monitoring Process Fragments Additional or enhanced
Dynamic SWS Discovery
SWS Invocation
SWS Discovery
Process Composition
functionalities in each
phase
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 12

SBP Modeling
The processes are modeled in a graphical notation
known to business people (e.g. BPMN)
Semantic Annotation of Process Models
The semantics of process tasks and events are specified
explicitly by using ontologies
Different kinds of ontologies needed
Process Ontology
Organizational Ontology
SWS Ontology
Domain ontologies
Additional features during process modeling:
Semantic discovery of already existing processes and process
fragments in the SBP repository
Auto-Completion
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 13

Semantic Annotation
O1 3
O
O2
Ontology
Repository
A B C
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 14

Process Fragment Discovery
O1 O2 O3
A B C
2
Find process fragments for Semantic
Invoicing of customers in
invoicing Gold
1 Business
4
Customer
category „Gold Customer“. 3
Process
Repository
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 15

SBP Configuration
Analytical process model has to be transformed to
executable process model
Semantic discovery of SWS that implement semantically
annotated tasks in the process model
If no SWS can be found, try to derive a composition of SWS
(e.g. using AI planning techniques)
Some tasks can stay without reference to SWS implementations
dynamic discovery at runtime!
Transform process model to BPEL4SWS
Finally, deploy process model to process engine
Manual steps by IT engineers might be necessary: specification of
technical aspects such as transactions, security
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 16

SBP Implementation
O4
O1 O2 O3
2
A B C 1 4
3
pT1 pT2 pT3 pT4
O‘1 O‘2 O‘3 O‘4
Semantic Web Services
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 17

SBP Execution
The executable process model (BPEL4SWS) is executed
on an extended BPEL engine
Extended BPEL engine uses a Semantic Execution
Environment for SWS discovery and mediation
Semantic Annotations allow for different types of partner
binding
Static Binding to conventional Web services
Static Binding to semantic Web services
Dynamic Binding (at runtime) to semantic Web services
Functional discovery
QoS-based discovery (price, quality)
Data Mediation
Lifting and Lowering
Translation of data between XML representation and instances
of ontology concepts
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 18

SBP Execution
O4
O1 O2 O3
2
A B C 1 4
Find and invoke “best-price” service 3
Semantic Service Bus (SSB)
pT1 pT2 pT3 pT3’ pT4
O‘1 O‘2 O‘3 O‘3 O‘4
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 19

SBP Analysis
Monitoring and mining of the execution history:
Execution components (BPEL4SWS engine, SEE) log events
during process execution
Events are annotated with ontological concepts and stored in
the execution history (event log)
When querying the execution history, reasoning can be used to
derive implicit knowledge
E.g., “How many customers have booked journeys from Austria
to Germany in the last week?”
The SBP monitoring/mining tool provides a suitable GUI to
enable business people to formulate queries (which are then
transformed to logical expressions)
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 20

SUPER Architecture
Execution Components Tooling
SBP Semantic SBP SBP Monitoring
SBP
Execution Execution Modelling & Management
Mining Tool
Engine Environment Tool Tool
Semantic Service Bus Eventing
Protocol Binding
Deployment
Lifting & SBP
Lowering Mediation
SBP Ontology/SWS Execution
Repository Repository History
SBP Data
Composition Mediation
SBP SBP
Discovery Reasoning Platform Components
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 21

Summary and Outlook
SUPER aims to bridging the business/IT gap using
semantic annotations in each phase of the BPM lifecycle
First half of the project was about analysing the
requirements, creating an architecture and prototyping
the execution environment
Preliminary results: sEPC, sBPMN, BPMO, sBPEL, BPEL4SWS
Extended BPEL Engine (SBPELEE), based on Apache Ode
BPMO modeller
Second half of the project focuses on enhancing the
modelling phase
Composition, Discovery, Choreography
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 22

Thank you for your attention!
Questions?
© Tammo van Lessen, Branimir Wetzstein, Jörg Nitzsche Zhilei Ma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Frank Leymann 23

End of Document