Institut AIFB, Universität Karlsruhe (TH) Forschungsuniversität gegründet 1825 Towards Automatic Composition of Processes based on Semantic Descriptions of Business Objects and Services Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 2 Agenda Introduction Motivation and Aim Previous Work Goals of the Project Determining of Semantic Service Information Architecture Timeframe and Milestones

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 3 Introduction- Business Objects SAP Business Objects are entities that encapsulate business data and business logic BOs are described by a business object model, which defines: The Structure of the business objects attributes The Type of the business objects attributes Aspects of the business object instances behavior during its life cycle Service interfaces for accessing the business objects instances

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 4 Introduction – Core Services A BO is accessed only through its service interfaces Core services provide a generic interface to business logic of business object nodes Each BO node provides same set of core services for performing basic operations like READ, MODIFY and SAVE

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 5 Introduction – Compound Services Compound services: coarse-grained rather than fine-grained like core services for A2A and B2B communication Interplay of compound and core services

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 6 Motivation and Aim Currently, compound services and A2A or B2B integration scenarios are designed (composed) manually Time consuming and error-prone task Not suited for small and middle sized enterprises Aim: to develop methods that facilitate composition of compound services as well as A2A or B2B integration scenarios

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 7 Technical Challenges In order to achieve automatic composition Business objects and services need to be described semantically Desired properties of the composed system need to be specified Automatic composition algorithm need to be developed 2. properties of the desired composition 1. Semantic descriptions of BOs and Services 4. Service compositions that have the desired properties 3. Composition Algorithm Provider User Service Descriptions Repository Service Descriptions Repository

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 8 Previous Work Jens Lemcke – POEM Composition algorithms for solving the task of designing a collaborative business process, while respecting a set of primary and recovery goals by describing the business processes as a finite state machine FZI – Ontology development Developing an ontology based on the SAP business objects catalog Sudhir Agarwal – PhD Thesis Semantic Description of Web Services Specification of desired properties of the target process Policies 1. … 2. … 3. … Goals 1. … 2. … 3. … Current Situation Exception Specifications Companys data base Plan for execution Goal

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 9 Goals of the Project information about services and business objects 1. To investigate which information about services and business objects is available and how it can be used to extract their semantic descriptions (semi) automatically. composition of compound 2. To investigate how the composition of compound services and A2A or B2B integration scenarios can be performed automatically, at least to some extent, in order to save time and achieve less error-prone processes.

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 10 Determining of Semantic Service Information Tasks: sources Identify sources of semantic service information methods for the extraction Develop methods for the extraction of semantic information Specify Specify the results of the extraction processes with appropriate formalisms Semantic WS Descriptions Extraction of Service Descriptions Semantic WS Descriptions Semantic Service Descriptions

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 11 Sources of Semantic Service Information SAP Business objects provide a good starting point for the extraction of semantic description The structure The structure of the BOs attributes can be used for the specification of additional requirements on the composition of services The type The type of the BOs attributes can be used as a source for extracting semantic information instance behavior Aspects of the BOs instance behavior provide additional information about constrains of the services output

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 12 Extraction of Semantic Information Development of methods for extraction of semantic information from semi-structured data Ontology learning combined with information extraction approaches The extracted semantic information is specified with a formalism, which facilitates the composition of services Description Formalism Description Formalism Description Formalism Description Formalism BOs information and service descriptions Extraction of Semantic Information Semantic WS Descriptions Description Formalism Description Formalism

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 13 Composition of Compound Services and A2A or B2B Integration Scenarios The desired properties of the process to be composed also have to be formally specified: Collect the requirements for the property types of the desired processes Specify the constraints on the compound service and A2A or B2B Develop a composition algorithm, which generates an executable process. Based on: The semantic descriptions of services and business objects The desired properties of the resulting process

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 14 Architecture The Semantic Enterprise Service Repository stores the descriptions of the business objects and services Process composer: Input: process request with process requirements Output: executable process Process composer Executable Process Process Request & Process Requirements Semantic Enterprise Service Repository

Grundlagen der Informatik I - ©AIFB 2008 KIT – die Kooperation von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH und Universität Karlsruhe (TH) 15 Timeframe and Milestones One year feasibility study on automatic composition of processes based on semantic descriptions of business objects and services, followed by two years for development of methods and tools Milestones for the feasibility study: An analysis of the sources and types of information about services and business objects A methodology for the extraction of semantic descriptions of services based on the business objects information and constrains, in order to facilitate the composition of compound services