Project A7 – Business Documents and Protocols Ulrike Greiner, SAP

1© ATHENA Consortium 2007

Project A7 – Business Documents and ProtocolsUlrike Greiner, SAP

ATHENA M36 Final Review27.-29. March 2007Madeira, Portugal

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ATHENA M36 Final Review, March 2007, Madeira

© ATHENA Consortium 2007

Presentation Outline

● Project Goals ● Building on ATHENA results ● Major Achievements ● Fulfilment of Work Plan● Contributions to ATHENA● Impact Made

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Project Goals● Analyse business document and protocol standards and

relate it to industry best practice● Methods and tools for lifecycle management of business

documents and protocols: ● Creation of business documents and protocols

● Ensuring consistency and reuse● Different modelling layers (business – technical – execution)● Support variants of business documents

● Storage and retrieval of business documents and protocols● Mapping and transformation of business documents

● Creation of business content using ATHENA tools for selected industry best practice

Methods and tools for efficient and easy management of Business Documents and Protocols

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Building on ATHENA Results● A2:

● Modelling approach for cross-organisational business processes● CBP modelling and execution infrastructure

● A5: ● WSDL analyzer for mapping● Agent platform as execution platform for business protocols● Service execution infrastructure

● A6:● P2P infrastructure for repository services● PIM4SOA as a basis for technical level business document and protocol models ● PIM->PSM transformations between modelling levels● Semaphore transformation tool

● A3: ● Tools and methods for semantic annotation● Reconciliation rules specification and engine for business document reconciliation

● A1: MPCE based repository interface

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Definition of Basic Terms● A business document is a set of information components that are

interchanged as part of a business activity● Possible components are:

● Information (data)● Meaning of that information (meta-data)● Presentation information (layout)● Links to other information components

● Information in business documents can be of different types:● Structured: e.g. XML documents or databases● Unstructured: e.g. text files, Word documents, Emails, most Web pages● Semi-structured: Web pages with known fields of content (annotations)

● Business protocol specifies how messages have to be exchanged between different parties participating in a CBP

● Business process is a goal oriented, value creating sequence of activities● in a CBP these activities are executed by more than one enterprise

<xml>…</xml>

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Major Achievements● Analysis of industry requirements and standards● Modelling of business documents on the technical level:

● Supporting re-use and variant handling● Support for business level stakeholders● Implementation of DFDL standard for non-XML data

● Automated Mapping Support:● Automated assistance to mapping business documents

● Repository:● P2P-based repository for flexibly storing and retrieving business

documents and protocols● Protocol support:

● Transformation from PIM4SOA to agent metamodel● Transformation from business level CBPs to protocols

● Application of A7 results to industry scenario

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As-is Situation in ATHENA Scenarios

● Questionnaires to gather information from ATHENA user partners about● As-is situation in their company regarding business documents and

protocols● A7 specific requirements

● Several shortcomings:● Standards are very complex● Implementation of standards is complicated, complex, and time-consuming● Lots of interaction needed between the partners until integration is achieved● ICT standards are difficult to use (no compliance certification) ● Rhythm of evolution is too fast for industrial needs

● robust and high quality standards are needed● Overlapping and incoherency in coverage of different view points

(engineering, ICT, organization, information)● Framework to coherently compose standards to cover all necessary aspects

is missing

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Requirements from DRDS● Business document support should fulfil the following requirements:

● Coherent documents are needed instead of loosely connected messages● Re-usability, Life cycle management● Guidance for filling of document● Support for multi-user access and multi-organization use of document● Automated processing of exchanged documents● Connection of business documents with Enterprise Modelling systems● Easy implementation of business document related systems

● Business protocol support should fulfil the following requirements:● Monitoring and controlling of protocols● Enacting view processes, event notification, compliance with existing

solution● Technical features of the protocol system, e.g. support of technical

middleware below the protocol, reconciliation of messages and the detection of incoherent message content

A7.2

A7.2

A7.4

A7.4A7.3

A7.5

A2

A7.4

A7.4

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Classification of Standards (BD & BP)

Collaboration Agreement

Collaboration

Business Process /

Service Def.

InformationDef.

Infrastructure Services

ebXMLCPPA

Impl. Guide

VariantProblem

RosettaNetPIPs

STEP

EDI STAR OAGI WS-CDL

ebXMLBPSS

ebXMLCCTS

RosettaNetData

Dictionary

W3C transport protocols

(HTTP, SOAP, etc.)WSDL Discovery

IEEE FIPA

OGSAOGSI

UML UBLstandard product attributes

WS-BPEL XPDL

EDI STAR OAGI

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Selected Standards• Detailed description and analysis of the following standards:

• ebXML CCTS and CPPA• RosettaNet PIPs, data dictionary and schemas• STEP• Standard Product Attributes (DIN 4002)• OAGI• Schemas for non-XML documents:

• DFDL / HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)• FIPA Agent Communication Language (ACL)

• Further problems investigated in A7:• Variant problem

Collaboration Agreement

Collaboration

Business Process / Service

Definition

Information Definition

Infrastructure Services

ebXML CPPA

Implementation Guide

Variant Problem

ebXML BPSS

ebXML CCTS

RosettaNet PIPs

RosettaNet Data

Dictionary + schemas

STEP

EDI STAR OAGI WS-CDL

WS-BPEL XPDL

EDI STAR OAGI UML UBLstandard product

attributes

W3C transport protocols (HTTP,

SOAP, etc.)WSDL Discovery

OGSA, OGSI

FIPA ACL

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Major Achievements

● Analysis of industry requirements and standards● Modelling of business documents on the technical level:







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Modeling Requirements and Approach

● Re-use of model types that are modeled once and can then be used in different document models

● Model representation targeted at business experts ● Graphical modeling support needed

● Semi-automatic transformation to technical specification● e.g. through export functionality to create XML representations

● Support for handling variants of business documents:● Share most of their data fields● Differ in a limited number of data fields that depend on the context in

which the document is used● Example: a purchase order that differs slightly if used in different

European countries● Concept of business context defines specific circumstances in which

a document is used

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Document Modeling with Variant Handling● Supports variant handling:

● Business document template contains all possible fields

● Fields of concrete document are determined by business context

● Configuration procedure to support variant handling

● Outer configuration: facilitates search for appropriate variant

● e.g. through questionnaire or scenario-based

● Inner configuration: fine-tuning of selected variant

● Janiesch, C., Dreiling, A., Greiner, U., Lippe, S.: Configuring Processes and Business Components—An Integrated Approach to Enterprise Systems Collaboration. Proc. of ICEBE 2006

● Janiesch, C., Dreiling, A., Greiner, U., Lippe, S.: Integrated Configuration of Enterprise Systems for Interoperability. Proc. of EDOC 2006

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Graphical Editor for PIM4SOA● Built as a set of Eclipse plug-ins using Eclipse Graphical Modelling

Framework (GMF)● Based on updated version of PIM4SOA metamodel (A6)

● Added support for extending documents● Supports the graphical modelling of

● Services● Processes● Information (Business Documents)

● Creates models conform to PIM4SOA metamodel● Developed general Eclipse plug-in for A7 repository to allow

● Connection● Browsing● Import / Export

● Down-stream transformations● Eclipse plug-ins: workbench integration with existing ATHENA MDE tools● PIM4SOA editor stores natively in PIM4SOA format

● Existing A6 transformations work with minor alterations

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Dealing with Non-XML Data● Handling non-XML data is a key requirement for a large number of SOA solutions

● Legacy data, X12, EDIFACT, optimized data● Non-XML description is the only part of a SOA solution that is not standardized ● Data Format Description Language is a draft standard to address that

requirement● DFDL Working Group within Open Grid Forum developing specification

● Physical format information contained as annotations e.g.● <xs:sequence dfdl:separator=","> ● <xs:element name="y" type="double"

dfdl:initiator="baseQ" dfdl:tagSeparator="=" />● </xs:sequence>

● Use of XML Schema gives several benefits (e.g. existing body of tooling, can apply prior knowledge, useful document model and implementation libraries)

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DFDL – Tooling/ATHENA results

● Reference DFDL parser and serializer developed

● (similar to Xerces for XML)● Developed within/as addition to…

● Virtual XML framework● Extended existing framework with

improved parser and new serializer

● Uses DFDL parser to make non-XML data appear to be XML to existing tools

Input DFDL Schema

(e.g. CSV)

Target DFDL Schema (e.g. ‘plain’ XML)

VirtualXML

DFDL (Parser)

DFDL(Serialzer)

XQuery command line tools

XQuery API

Adapters(e.g. DOM,

SDO )

Data Source

Bob,Smith,0042,002047500

Data Target

<name> <given>bob</given> <last>smith</last></name><age>42</age><salary>20475.00</salary>

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Major Achievements








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Mapping Requirements, Problems, Goals

● Requirement for document mapping● Business processes and services are developed by different groups

and use different interfaces.● Standards (ebXML, RosettaNet, etc.) are too complicated for

applications to implement● Document mapping bridges between requester‘s service definition

and provider‘s service definition● Current problems:

● Mapping is almost entirely manual● Needs domain experts

● A7 goal: ● Automate as much as possible

● Not expecting complete automation● Build on existing mapping tools

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Mapping Architecture (1)

● A mapping generator ● An optional automatic

map generator● A transformation

generator● A runtime that executes

the transformationconforms to conforms to

save

SourceSource TargetTarget

XQuery, XSLT, Java, proprietary

Map Generator

Transformationgenerator

RuntimeTransformation

Maps

SourceSchema

TargetSchema

Automatic matching

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Automatic Map Generator● Automatically discovers mappings between elements and

attributes in the source and target schema using● Examples of source and target documents (Instance level matching)● Names and structure defined in the schema only (schema level

matching)● Schema level matching algorithms that can be used: lexical

matcher, thesaurus matcher, type matcher, structure matcher, ontology matcher

SourceDeliveryAddress

AddrLine1CitySt

TargetCustomerAddress

AddressLine1CityState

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Example

Source Schema Target Schema

Orderamount float

UPC string

dueDate datetime

accntId string

deliveryAddr address

clientName string

PurchaseOrderEAN string

Qty float

deliverydate dateTime

clientId string

deliverAddress address

Ontology matching

EANCode

UPC

EAN 8

EAN 13subClassOf

type

type

PartNumber

subClassOf

Lexical matchingThesaurus matching

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Semaphore Extensions

● Integration with A3 repository● Connect to A3 Repository● Retrieve ontologies

● Automatic conversion to UML2 models for mapping● Integration with A7 P2P repository

● Allows for storage and retrieval of relevant artifacts● Schemas● Models● Mappings

● Uses same component (plug-in) as PIM4SOA Editor● Extended support for complex mappings

● Valuable insight gained through work with CAS pilot

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Major Achievements








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Repository for Business Documents

Specific requirements for business documents and protocols:

● A huge number of different formats● Various origins: bodies (e.g. W³C, IEEE), companies (e.g. Scheer)● Domain-specifics as from automotive● Applicability at different business levels:

● ICT, content, process, … ● Size of the data objects

● Lots based on XML

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Repository Architecture (I)

● Joins two highlights:● Flexibility from the Standard

Repository API ● Robustness from the Peer-to-

Peer-based data store● Based on P2P platform

BRMF from A6● Provides both local and

global repository workspaces● Peers store resources and● provide workspace navigation

Persistent Data StorePersistent Data Store

Information Models Information Models

Repository APIRepository API

ApplicationApplication ToolTool GUIGUI

Repository EngineRepository Engine

JSR 170 Repository Standard APIJSR 170 Repository Standard API

Peer-to-PeerInformation Space

Peer-to-PeerInformation Space

Repository MappingRepository Mapping

Business DocumentsBusiness Documents Business ProtocolsBusiness Protocols

Models InstancesModels Instances

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Repository Architecture (II)

Local Dataand Resource Store

Local Dataand Resource Store

JSR 170 Repository Standard APIJSR 170 Repository Standard API

Repository MappingRepository Mapping

Peer-to-PeerInformation

Space

Peer-to-PeerInformation

Space

localRepositoryWorkspace



LocalRepositoryWorkspace Distributed

RepositoryWorkspace

Clone and Update operations provide data transfer• from local repository workspaces• to the global workspace distributed

across the P2P overlay network• and vice versa

Separation between meta data (resources) and pure business document content

Access documents in the local storage through the repository

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P2P Repository Benefits● Benefits of the API Standard JSR 170

● Interoperability of various standard-compliant applications with various standard-compliant repositories

● Benefits of the Peer-to-Peer data store● Highly robust and reliable● No single point of failure● Self-organizing overlay network in case of peer break-downs● Easy scaling● Data access without network flooding (DHT approach)● Reduced Total Cost of Ownership

● Benefits of the separation between local and global workspaces

● Update local repository modifications into the global workspace● Load (sub-) workspaces from Peer-to-Peer network

Standard-compliantRepository


Standard API JSR 170Standard API JSR 170

Standard-compliantApplication







Standard-compliantRepositoryStandard-compliant

Repository


Proprietary APIProprietary API

API Mapping

Proprietary RepositoryProprietary Repository

● Stäber, F., Bartlang, U. und Müller, J.-P.: Using Onion Routing to Secure Peer-to-Peer Supported Business Collaboration, Proc. of eChallenges 2006● Fischer, K., Müller, J.-P., Stäber, F. und Friese, Th.: Using Peer-to-Peer Protocols to Enable Implicit Communication in a BDI Agent Architecture,

Programming Multi-Agent Systems, Springer, to appear 2007

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Metis BD&P Architecture

Business Protocol Task

Model

Protocol Definition (WSDL)

Business Document Definition

(XSD)

WSDL Import(A6)

WebServiceModel

Web Service Invoker

(A6)

WebService

ParameterInterface

TaskParameterInterface

Business Object Model

Client side modeling

Server side execution

Task Execution

Engine(A2)

Parameter Mapping Engine

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Major Achievements








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Model-driven generation of executable protocols

● Problem: ● PIM4SOA ‚as is‘ concentrates on

simple request/response patterns ● E.g. patterns that deal with multiple partners cannot

be modelled● Extend PIM4SOA to model service interaction

patterns● ‚Conservative‘ extension● Existing transformations should still work● Enrich PIM4SOA with agent-related concepts

● Transformation from PIM4SOA to Agent Metamodel

use agentsfor execution

Agent protocols:detail process step„Send RFQ“ intointeraction pattern

send RFQ

receive RFQInteraction pattern:

receive RFQ

receive RFQ

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Model-driven generation of executable protocols (2)

Protocol description PIM4SOA model

Jack Agent Model

specify

transform

● Kahl, T.; Zinnikus, I.; Roser, S.; Hahn, C.; Ziemann, J.; Mueller, J.; Fischer, K.: Architecture for the design and agent-based implementation of CBPs. I-ESA Conference, Funchal/Portugal, 28.-30. März 2007

● Hahn, C:, Neple, T. Limyr, A.,: Comparing model-transformation approaches. Workshop on PRO-VE, I-ESA Conference, Funchal/Portugal, 28.-30. März 2007

● Hahn, C., Madrigal-Mora, C., Fischer, K.: Interoperability through a platform-independent model for agents. I-ESA Conference, Funchal/Portugal, 28.-30. März 2007

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Protocol Extensions

● Enhancements for transformations from business level CBP models to executable process models

● Steps for Transforming Event-driven Process Chain (EPC) to WS-BPEL model:

1) Complex semi-formal private processes are available2) Business analyst describes interactions activities with EPC View

Processes● No technical knowledge is needed, EPC is well known

3) System Designer enriches EPC with technical details● Names of involved Web Services, ports, types of XML messages● Structure of the EPC stays the same!● Formalized model to derive technical level models

4) Use transformations from A2 and A6 to convert technical EPC to PIM4SOA and then to BPEL

● Kahl, T., Ziemann, J., Greiner, U., Lippe, S.: Enterprise Model Driven Creation of Business Protocols. Proc. of eChallenges 2006

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Major Achievements








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Application of A7 Results● A7 results have been applied in the following scenarios:

● eProcurement scenario from the furniture pilot● car configuration scenario from the outbound logistics pilot● strategic sourcing scenario from the automotive pilot● process for ordering a new vehicle from the manufacturer based on

the STAR standard● Main findings:

● results are well suited to handle industry scenarios and standards ● results made a significant contribution to the outbound logistics pilot ● A7 complements A2 results on modeling and enactment of CBPs● provide means to also involve business users in the modelling effort

thus abstracting from the purely technical representation provided e.g. by XML messages

● protocol extensions target different execution platforms thus considering different infrastructures already existing at partners

● Peer-to-Peer based repository facilitates an easy exchange of document and protocol models

● provides a robust and decentrally organized platform

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Summary of Achievements ● Many standards and specifications of business documents and protocols

are available● Users need guidance and support for implementation through modeling

guidelines and tools:● Different stakeholders with different information needs have to be supported● Transformation mechanisms are needed to cover different pre-existing

system landscapes● To reduce modeling effort users need means to re-use document models

and handle variants● Just dealing with the process level is insufficient: Business protocols

have to be considered as a representation for more detailed interactions● Prototype: Graphical modeling support for business users is combined

with semi-automatic transformations to create executable representations● processes, protocols and documents cover the most important

aspects of modeling B2B collaborations● actors, product structures etc. must also be managed

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Fulfilment of Work PlanDeliverabl

e No

Deliverable TitleProject / WP No

Lead Participan

t

Nature

Dissemi-nation

level

Delivery Date

D.A7.1Analysis of Industry Best Practice

in Business Documents and Protocols

A7.1 DFKI R PU M24

D.A7.2ATHENA Approach to Business

Document and Protocol Management

A7.2A7.3A7.4

Siemens R+P RE M34

D.A7.3Business Content for Selected

Industry Best Practice A7.5 SAP R+P RE M36

Working Document

No

Deliverable TitleProject / WP No

Lead Participan

t

Nature

Dissemi-nation

level

Delivery Date

WD.A7.1Analysis of Industry Best Practice

in Business Documents and Protocols

A7.2A7.3A7.4

Siemens R RE M30

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Overall Contribution to ATHENA

A7 provides lifecycle management for business documents and enhances CBPs with protocol support

MD

D

Sem

antic

PIM4SOA Extended

BPEL

WSDL

Maestro for BDM

Transfor-mations

BPEL EngineARIS

EPC

JACK

Metis

Tasks

Services

Business

Processes

Data

PIM

4SO

A E

dito

r

SemaphoreP2P Repository

DFDL parser & serializer

Automated Mapping

Data

Services

Processes

Business

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Impact Made

● Extension and completion of ATHENA results on CBPs● Contribution to outbound logistics pilot● DFDL - Implementation and status:

● Parsers and Serializers can make use of physical annotations to read and write data in the described format

● Prototype making use of the current version of specification available (within Virtual XML Framework from IBM, http://www.ibm.com/alphaworks)

● Metis A7 implementation applied in two pilots in another EU project, and for demonstrations on ISO 15926 reference model import for the oil&gas industry

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