Semantics of agent-based service delegation and alignment

Abstract

In this paper we concentrate on conceptual modeling and semantics of service delegation and alignment in information systems. In delegation, a source company wishes to hand over parts of its functionality together with related responsibilities to a supplying party. From the side of the outsourcer the search for a suitable supplier mostly will be a manual process with all the consequences of a long time to market, as well as trial and error before a good fit is obtained between both related parties. This paper addresses an agent-based solution for improving this match-making process in B2B markets. Part of the match-making process will be the alignment of business processes on the side of the outsourcer as well on the side of the supplier. We will provide a formal means to ensure that the delegation relationship, determined by a ruling service level agreement (SLA), satisfies specific correctness criteria. These correctness criteria are defined in terms of consistency and completeness between the delegated operation and the associated operation offered by the supplier. Our correctness criterion will concern mappings between an existing delegator schema and an existing supplier schema, and will address both semantical and ontological aspects pertaining to delegation and alignment. Agent-based delegation together with formal specifications can prove their value in the process of constructing delegation contracts. Our analysis will be performed within the modeling framework based on the UML/OCL formalism. The concepts we discussed in this paper are illustrated by an example of companies delegating billing services to Billing Service Providers. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.