Algorithms based on pattern analysis for verification and adapter creation for business process composition

Abstract

With more automation in inter-organizational supply chains and proliferation of Web services technology, the need for organizations to link their business services and processes is becoming increasingly important. Ideally, such linking must be automated and also possible to do on-the-fly in an ad hoc manner. In this paper, we view business processes in terms of standard patterns, and describe a pattern compatibility matrix and rules that allow us to simplify the task of checking compatibility between two or more processes because these prerequisite rules can be applied to each pattern separately, thus reducing the search space. We give an algorithm for applying these rules to check process compatibility. If two processes are compatible, we determine whether an adapter is required, and if so, a minimal adapter is generated by another algorithm. Two variants of the algorithm (PBA and PBA-MIN) are implemented, and experimental results and comparisons with an existing algorithm are given. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.