Model transformations to leverage service networks

Abstract

The Internet has catered for the transformation of traditional "stovepiped" service companies into global service networks fostering co-production of value to more effectively and efficiently satisfy the ever-growing demands of mundane customers. The catalyst of this change is the happenstance of Service Oriented Computing, which provides a natural distributed computing technology paradigm for implementing and evolving such highly distributed networks of autonomous trading partners with coordinate and cooperative actions. However, how to faithfully (re-)map service networks to business processes and service realizations and vice-versa is still partly terra incognita. In this paper, we introduce a semi-automatic model transformation approach for creating the abstract business processes that take place between trading partners from models of service networks, assuming limited human-involvement focused on selecting reusable transformation patterns. This approach is explored and validated using a realistic case study reflecting best practices in the telecommunications industry. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.