INTRODUCING SOA AND
WORKFLOW MODELING TO NONTECHNICAL STUDENTS
Bruce J. Neubauer
University of South
Florida
Paper is intended to be a contribution
to Pedagogy and to MIS
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Generalist managers need to understand
some implications of software engineering.
Programmers increasingly have reason to
understand business processes.
Convergent engineering is the concurrent
design of software applications and the
business processes supported. See David
Taylor.
Familiar Benefits of Modular Design of
Software Applications
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“Divide and conquer” approach to complexity
Facilitates coordination of team members
Project easier to document and comprehend
Opportunities for code reuse
Application easier to maintain
Traditional Distributed Applications
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Remote procedure calls across local
networks
Calls to DBMS’s within organizations.
CORBA
DCOM
CORBA Standards
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Source: Wikipedia.com
Web Services
Standards
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Source: Wikipedia.com
Web Services
Standards
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Built on Internet protocols
Facilitate creation of distributed applications
for the Internet and intranets
Generally do not hold state
Tend to be slow because of overhead
required by use of SOAP and XML
Used to implement Service Oriented
Architectures
Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)
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Distributed systems in which some of the
modules of software are Web Services
Involves the concept of SERVICES, that is
not necessarily intuitive to either
programmers or to business analysts
Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)
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As I understand it, the design goal is not only
to design the software code, but to integrate
the design of business processes into the
design of the software code.
Blurs the distinction between (business)
analysis and design
The goal is convergent engineering as
envisioned by David Taylor
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Business Process Modeling Language
(BPML) is a meta-language for the modeling
of business processes, just as XML is a
meta-language for the modeling of business
data. BPML was a proposed language, that
has been dropped in favor of BPEL4WS.
Source: Wikipedia.com
Business Process Execution Language
(BPEL)
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BPEL's focus on modern business
processes,
BPEL uses Web services
BPEL is an orchestration language
Supports “programming in the large”
Orchestration and Choreography
Workflow Design
What software permits visual modeling of
business processes and outputs BPEL?
AquaLogic (formerly FuegoBPM)
The Interface is Intuitive
Business Process Change: A Manager's
Guide to Improving, Redesigning, and
Automating Processes (2002)
Simple Business Process Model
Convergent Engineering
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We are designing both business processes
and the software that automates processes
We define Roles, Rules and Activities
We identify unconditional and conditional
paths between activities
We identify sub processes to address
complexity
Convergent Design
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Who are the actors (roles) in
this business process?
What activies must be
performed in what order?
Under what circumstances must
conditional paths be possible?
What might we outsource using Web
Services?
Web Services and SOA
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An activity can be implemented as a Web
service and outsourced beyond the focal
organization.
A Web service may be used to tap into part
of the functionality of a legacy system, within
or outside of a focal organization.
Business Process Using Multiple Web
Services
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Verify customer’s credit
Verify history of trade in
vehicle
Get three finance offers
Calculate license plate fee
Notify insurance company
Conclusions
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There is something important here.
BizTalk Server, orchestration, choreography
of Web Services, convergent engineering
Service Oriented Architecture
On my first effort to teach this, I found the to
actually do the design of business
processes.
The BEA software got in the way of learning.