Method and Apparatus for Ensuring Business Process Integration Capability for one or more Distributed Component Systems in Communication with one or more Legacy Systems

• US 20070198562A1
• Filed: 04/03/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: TATA Consultancy Services Limited (Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: TATA Consultancy Services Limited (Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kulkarni, Vinay, Reddy, Sreedhar, Barat, Souvik
• Application Number:
  US11/695,875
• Publication Number:
  US 20070198562A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design

Abstract

In a system for bridging one or more legacy systems with one or more component systems for data communication, a method for integrating application processes with one another includes steps for (a) expressing all application behavior using a modeling language; (b) transforming those expressions into process automata; (c) organizing composition settings comprising the process automata; and (d) analyzing process automata for integration safety and for integration completeness properties of the process automata using a deterministic finite automata library and leveraging its base functions.

Claims

1. In a system for bridging one or more legacy systems with one or more component systems for data communication, a method for integrating application processes with one another comprising steps of:

(a) expressing all application behavior using a modeling language;

(b) transforming those expressions into process automata;

(c) organizing composition settings comprising the process automata; and

(d) analyzing process automata for integration safety and for integration completeness properties of the process automata using a deterministic finite automata library and leveraging its base functions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (a), the modeling language used is business process execution language based.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (a), the applications are both internal and external applications with respect to the enterprise.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (b), the expressions represent process views of the applications.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (b), the process automata are expressed in Esterel programming language.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (b), an integration safety property and an integration completeness property are introduced and specified for each process automation as part of the transformation.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (c), the composition setting comprises the process automata of the application desired to be integrated and process automata of participating applications.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the integration safety property has the sub-attributes of compatibility and conformance.

9. The method of claim 1, further including step (e), for providing feedback to a system operator of any conflict to safe or complete business process integration found in step (d).

10. A process integration framework for enabling business process integration for multiple enterprise applications comprising:

a model transformation module;

a language compiler; and

an analyzer module having access to a code library;

characterized in that a desired application process automation is analyzed for integration safety and integration completeness in the context of other participating application process automata.

11. The framework of claim 10, integrated with a system for bridging one or more legacy systems for communication with one or more new component systems.

12. The framework of claim 10, installed on a single machine connected to a network.

13. The framework of claim 10, installed over two or more machines connected to a network.

14. The framework of claim 10, wherein the model transformation module converts BPEL4WS to Esterel and the language compiler is an Esterel compiler.

15. The framework of claim 10, wherein the code library is a deterministic finite automata library.

16. The framework of claim 10, wherein the analyzer leverages the base functions of the library to analyze the process automata.

17. The framework of claim 10, wherein the safety and completeness properties are specified using operators and relations.

18. The framework of claim 17, wherein the operators and relations include a restriction operator, a compliment operator, an event inclusion relation, a simulation relation, a partial simulation relation, and a collective simulation relation.