SOA for Egov PilotMichael Lang, Vitria Technologies,IncDave McPherson, Vitria Technologies, IncBrooke Stevenson, Spry Technologies, Inc
Using BPM software to govern a collaboration process used to define software services
April 30, 2008
Pilot Goal
Show how COTS BPM tools can be used in SOA to help effect transformation
Collaboration is essential in SOA for Mapping the SOA to existing POR Architectures and Enterprise
Architectures Decomposing a system into a collection of capabilities/services Defining the precise meaning of services that are exposed
BPM is essential in Implementing the collaboration process Governing the collaboration Monitoring and analyzing the collaboration process
Plan A
Use business process models developed by BTA to show how BPM tools can be used wire up (software) services to effect transformation The models were classified Not enough services were available
We “talk the talk” but we do not “walk the walk”
The broad availability of proven BPM tools should be reason enough for the federal government to make better progress in transitioning to SOA
BPM tools deliver ROI on the investment in SOA
Plan B
Apply the BPM tool to manage the process of collaboration used to define a target service architecture to enable transformation We worked with a pilot that is being managed out of the Army CIO/G-
6 AAIC They are working on several challenges
What are the capabilities buried in various POR’s Which of these capabilities should/can be exposed as services How do these capabilities map to various architectures, ie DODAF Describe the services in a way that promotes dynamic discovery and
execution They have been collaborating via a semantic wiki to build
vocabularies that define the semantics of the Core Enterprise Services (CES) domain and the semantics of the Acquisition Lifecycle
Army Pilot: Enabling Transformation
The Transitional Plan1. Transition from monolithic systems engineering to
SOA
2. Build highly interoperable services by collaborating on domain vocabularies
3. Orchestrate services in new ways to achieve rapid integration and support new capabilities
Transformational Technologies1. Standards: WSDL, WS-Policy, OWL-S, etc.
2. Semantic Wiki
3. Model-driven BPM – Back to Plan A!
The wider the community collaborating over the vocabulary, the wider the domain over which the vocabulary operates Bottom-up vocabulary development Facilitates the widest possible domain
Interoperation, reuse & integration can only be achieved if the precise (machine readable) meaning of all terms is known Meaning is only established by attaching properties and relationships
to nodes
Near term, BPM can enable management of a repeatable, scalable collaboration process requiring governance
Army Pilot Tenets: Collaboration, Semantics, & Governance
The Collaboration ProcessDemo Storyboard
Document Contents / Structure
Document instance = service specification
Wiki M3O
Master process = document instance lifecycle
Sub Process = document section lifecycle
Other Sub Processes to support the document
lifecycle but not related to the document. For e.g. Voting,
Objection Resolution & Document Access control
Oversight – aggregate and
individual process level
Governing CollaborationDemo Storyboard - Roles
Wiki M3O
Governing Board – owner of multiple service definition
communities
Secretariat – owner of individual service
definition communities
Facilitator – Leader of a particular community. Also a contributor and resolver
Authoring committee – specific sections &
voters
Community – specific sections
Collaboration Event ManagementWiki-BPM Integration
Wiki M3O
RSS
Subscribe to RSS feeds that reflect particular changes / additions.Might need to key off specific text entries like “Ready for review” to indicate major events
RSS Event Source Connector
(aka File Source)
Parse out events based on tags
Populate event header…service name, wiki page url…
Service call for population of data into wiki (e.g. voting results, other validated data entry) TBD
Technology Solution
M3O BPM Suite
Enterprise Elements Enterprise Architecture repository
MatchIT Semantic mapping tool
Knoodl Collaborative Vocabulary Editing Analytics Triple Store
Collaboration
Collaboration is critical to engaging the widest community possible
Collaboration is a process requiring governance Collaboration can occur at multiple levels
Within communities Within domains Across communities
Collaboration requires: the ability to negotiate in an unstructured way & the ability to capture the results of the negotiation in a
formal way
Pilot Lessons Learned
Collaboration is a process and must be governed The following are key to enabling collaboration:
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between community members Governing bodies to approve changes & make decisions Automation & enforcement of the negotiation process
Assurance that decisions are made Assurance that decisions result in an update to the structured information
Auditing the negotiation Visibility via reporting into the status and progress of a collaboration
activity Dynamic access to contextual information Dynamic notification of change within the environment Funding resources to participate in the community
Demonstration
Dave McPherson
Vitria, Inc
Army Pilot Approach:Architecture and Analysis
Transition from one-off integration of siloed program systems architecture to federated services-based architecture Federation allows programs to independently design/engineer to
achieve mission goals, while also aligning with enterprise objectives
Transition from acquisition of systems to acquisition of capabilities via services No need to change overall DoD acquisition policy & procedure Architecture data need to rapidly support decision needs of
business stakeholders Think Business Intelligence (BI) - Query, not Search!
Entry - Setup
Entry - Setup
Introduce to the audience what they are seeing.
Web 2.0 based business process management solution that (spin the cube)1. Collaboratively model
processes using the BPMN2. Manage runtime environments
that directly execute3. Monitor running processes4. Using powerful Analytics to
provide insight into operations Pilot – collaborated on
processes that bring automated oversight and governance to the process of collaborating on service definitions – answer the 3 questions
Power of Web 2.0 for collaboration of business process models
Process models that directly execute and through
What are the three challenges we are solving - 1. How do we bring structure /
rigor to the intended collaboration methodology – the process that drives the collaborative efforts to the desired end goal.
2. How can we measure progress – quantity and quality
3. How can we provide insight into performance across many simultaneous topics
Process Modeling – Collaborative Development BPMN Support
Process Modeling - Oversight
Process Modeling Oversight
Navigation and flow Drill into the Process
Workspace Introduce the Service Definition
Oversight Process How started – RSS event feed Flow through collaboration,
voting , objection handling through budgeting ad assignment
Expand the Service Specification step
Encapsulate complexity into sub-processes
Use of Workflow to bring controlled event management to key tasks like access control and voting
Close, and drill into the Collaboration cycle step
Ease of use Layering of information Responsiveness and power
of web 2.0
Process Modeling- Monitoring Activity
Process Modeling – Collaborative Development BPMN Support
Navigation and flow Iterative models that monitor the collaboration phases of definition of a
service Automatically brings in RSS update feeds to measure collaboration rates
in each cycle – like daily. Working on publishing the feeds to other policy driven process to act
accordingly. For example; validation of entries Use of workflow and associated notifications to bring attention to key
indicators that effect negatively effect performance Hover over the master model and navigate back Spin through the Manage, Monitor cubes
Execute the models Spin through to the Optimize workspace Cover flow view organize dashboards that provide insight into operational
processes Open the process activity monitor
Process Activity Monitoring
Process Activity Monitoring
Navigation and flow Navigate through widgets to explain what they are seeing Process activity status Drill down into an individual process model (allow time for it to load) Expand to full size Note
Visualize the current status The audit log of steps Play how you got here Open up the collaboration cycle (replay again – if the arrows come
up)..perhaps should drill in Go back to the cover flow viewer and select individual performance
Oversight Visualization
Oversight Visualization
Navigation and flow Click on a service category Visualize performance across key roles
Secretariat Collaboration activity Voting Activity
Drill down onto a particular service name
Managed Workflow – Access Control
Managed Workflow - Voting