A business process driven approach to manage data dependency constraints

Abstract

A major reason for the introduction and subsequent success of Business Process Management (BPM) and related tools is their ability to provide a clear separation between process, application and data logic. However, in spite of the abstraction value that BPM provides, a seamless flow between the technology layers has not been fully realized in mainstream enterprise software. The result of this disconnect is disparity (and even conflict) in enforcing various rules and constraints. In this paper, we address the problem of disconnect between the data relevant constraints defined within business process models and data dependency constraints defined in the data layer. We propose a business process (model) driven approach wherein such constraints can be modelled at the process level, and enforced at the data level through an (semi) automated translation into DBMS native procedures. The simultaneous specification ensures consistency of the business semantics across the process and data layers. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.