SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MONITORING AND CONTROLLING BUSINESS LEVEL SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS

• US 20080097807A1
• Filed: 12/14/2007
• Published: 04/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Haifei Li, Hung Chang, Jun-Jang Jeng, Liang-Jie Zhang, Santhosh Kumaran
• Original Assignee: Haifei Li, Hung Chang, Jun-Jang Jeng, Liang-Jie Zhang, Santhosh Kumaran
• Inventors: Chang, Hung, Zhang, Liang-Jie, Kumaran, Santhosh, Jeng, Jun-Jang, Li, Haifei
• Granted Patent: US 7,739,136 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Systems and methods for monitoring and controlling business level SLAs (Service level Agreements), and more particularly, systems and method for monitoring and controlling business level SLAs using probe points, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and business commitments. An XML (extensible Markup Language)-based specification referred to as BPCL (Business Process Commitment Language) is used to describe business commitments. BPCL specifications are used by a business process management (BPM) system to configure, monitor, and control business processes based on business commitments. Business Commitments and BPCL provide a path toward model-based management for dynamic e-business solutions.

Claims

1. A model for providing business process management, wherein the model is described using business commitment specifications that globally describe business relationships between a plurality of entities associated with a dynamic business process.

2. The model of claim 1, wherein the model is used for monitoring and controlling business-level SLAs (service level agreements) among the entities based on specified business commitments.

3. The model of claim 2, wherein the business commitments are defined using a KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and wherein KPIs are defined using probe points.

4. The model of claim 1, wherein the plurality of entities comprises external and internal parties associated with a business process.

5. The model of claim 1, wherein the business commitments are described using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) syntax.

6. A method for monitoring and controlling business level SLAs (service level agreements) via probe points, comprising the steps of:

providing at least one host computer adapted to have a business process commitment language (BPCL) configurator;

operating the BPCL configurator to configure an actuator for implementing management directives;

operating the BPCL configurator to configure a condition evaluator for evaluating logical conditions; and

operating the BPCL configurator to configure a key performance indicator (KPI) calculator for calculating a KPI value, wherein the at least one host computer determines the probe points of a business process for controlling SLAs based upon business directives.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of operating the BPCL configurator to configure an actuator for providing notification of SLA violations.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the SLAs are based on business commitments that are globally modeled for a plurality of entities.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein BPCL is described using XML syntax.

10. A system for providing business process management, comprising:

build-time components for generating documents that describe business relationships between a plurality of entities associated with a dynamic business process; and

run-time components for processing specifications of the documents to provide business level SLA (service level agreement) management of the dynamic business process.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the build-time components comprise a tool for authoring BPCL (business process commitment Language) documents that specify relationships between probe points, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and business commitments, and wherein the run-time components comprise components for monitoring an controlling business level SLAs using specifications of a BPCL document.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the development tool comprises an Eclipse-based visual development tool that displays a hierarchical relationship among probe points, KPIs and business commitments of a BPCL document.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the run-time components comprise a BPCL Configurator that allows a dynamic change to a BPCL document and automatically propagates the changes to the run-time components.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the run-time components comprise a KPI calculator for determining KPI values.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the run-time components comprise a condition evaluator for evaluating logical conditions of business commitments using the KPI values.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the run-time components comprise an evaluation trigger that determines a trigger to invoke the condition evaluator, wherein the trigger is alarm-based or event-based, wherein instructions for an alarm-based trigger are provided by the BPCL configurator when reading a BPCL document.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the run-time components comprise an actuator for sending generic notifications or invoking management directives that can alter the execution of the business process.

18. The system of claim 11, further comprising means for automatically detecting a dependency between probe points, KPIs and business commitments, and for determining KPIs and business commitments that are affected by unavailable probe points.