C.5. Business Process Infrastructure Framework (BPIF)
378. Within the wide area of relevant information technologies, this work has focused on a particular field referred to as Business Process Infrastructure Framework (BPIF). Although highly relevant, this is by no means a well defined or even well established field. Instead, an important part of this work has been to find a working definition and scope for the field.
379. As a starting point, the intent has been to describe technologies that in various ways support business processes. As almost any information technology available can be said to do this, we have focused on those technologies that most explicitly have to do with this kind of support. Furthermore, as service orientation is a known fundamental architectural concept for future NNEC solutions, the definition of BPIF assumed here has been limited to that kind of solutions. From the outset, we have also seen technologies for service description and discovery, which also is part of the Swedish responsibility, as such a fundamental ingredient of BPIF, that it is included as a subfield within BPIF.
380. An important basis for this work has also been the FMA Technology Support Study, June 2005, that points out and describes some central areas of technology development, in particular within the field of distributed system architecture. Parts of the material from that report have also been reused here, although somewhat rearranged to fit the current scope.
381. Within this scope, this report presents the first steps toward a complete description of the field of BPIF, and includes
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a definition of the field,
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a structure that divides the field into a number of aspects,
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a brief overview of each of these aspects,
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a list of candidate technologies (with an emphasis of existing or emerging standards) with a bearing on BPIF, and
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A mapping of the candidate technologies onto the BPIF subfields.
382. Currently, the terms used in this report are those traditionally used in the general development of the various technologies that are presented. However, in the more specific context where the results of this report are to be applied, an adaptation of some terms to that context will probably be needed.
C.5.1. Overview
383. This section consists of two main parts. The first part is a definition of the field of business process infrastructure frameworks (BPIF), which divides the field into four main aspects. These aspects are described one by one. The descriptions both introduce some central concepts, and provide an overview of technology fields that support the aspects.
384. Many relevant technologies do not fit into a single of the aspects or technology fields addressed in the first part. The second part of the document is therefore a listing of potentially relevant technologies, along with brief descriptions of the technologies and which aspects of BPIF they support.
C.5.2. Definition
385. At operational level, business processes are key components for the realization of an organization’s tasks, in particular those tasks that represent the main and externally exposed capabilities of the organization. A business process is a realization of a work flow that may involve several subtasks and decision points. Often, a business process also involves the collaboration of several organizations where each organization will contribute in parts of the operations. Setting up and running a business process is thus an important and often complex task in any operation.
386. Although business processes have traditionally been treated mostly in a commercial context, they are also relevant as means of organizing operations in a context like NNEC. However, to successfully make use of the concept of business processes, in particular in a very dynamic context, a framework for engineering and management of business processes is needed, i.e., a business process infrastructure framework (BPIF).
387. Today, there are technologies that provide at least partial support for a BPIF. Most of those technologies that provide the most explicit support for business processes are based on the concepts of services and service oriented architecture (SOA), and we will in fact limit our definition of BPIF in this context to include only service based solutions. However, few if any complete frameworks for service based business processes exist that provide the consistent technology reference model needed here. Therefore, we will address this field in terms of four aspects or concerns:
388. Distributed systems: Many practical business processes involve the collaboration of several organizations and systems. Therefore, a BPIF needs to be based on distributed system technologies. With service based solutions in focus, service oriented architecture (SOA) is an obvious field of distributed system technologies to consider, but there are also other trends in distributed system technologies that may provide essential support for the implementation of a BPIF.
389. Service selection: With services as key components for the realization of a business process, it is of course important that relevant services can be found. Normally, this is not just a matter of finding services that provide the right capabilities, but also to make sure that other requirements and constraints are fulfilled regarding, for example, quality of service (QoS) and policies. Specific concerns for this aspect are thus both the description of services, and means of finding and identifying the right services.
390. Process composition: Once suitable services are available, they need to be combined into sequences and decision points that represent the required work flow of the business process. Also it is necessary to make sure that service providers and consumers in the work flow interact properly in accordance with the intentions behind each service. Support for this aspect must include the description of business processes in these terms so that their setup and deployment can be made more or less automatic.
391. Management and infrastructure. This aspect concerns deployment, configuration, contracts, and policies for business processes. Typically, business processes will need to involve components that are distributed over heterogeneous environments and different organizations. This stresses the need for technologies that can provide a manageable infrastructure and execution context.
Figure C.4. BPIF Overview
392. Each of these aspects can also be treated as a technology area where technologies already exist or development of new technologies is going on. However, much development in each area has a scope or orientation that is beyond the particular needs for a BPIF. Therefore our treatment of each area will not cover its full extent, but rather be limited to parts that are related to BPIF needs.