Method and Apparatus for Model-Driven Managed Business Services

• US 20080183530A1
• Filed: 04/02/2008
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Anca-Andreea Ivan, Hai Tao Hu, Kumar Bhaskaran, Lun Quoc Nguyen, Santhosh Kumaran, Shiwa S. Fu, Shubir Kapoor, Sugato Bagchi, Thejaswini Ramachandra, Ying Huang
• Original Assignee: Anca-Andreea Ivan, Hai Tao Hu, Kumar Bhaskaran, Lun Quoc Nguyen, Santhosh Kumaran, Shiwa S. Fu, Shubir Kapoor, Sugato Bagchi, Thejaswini Ramachandra, Ying Huang
• Inventors: Bhaskaran, Kumar, Huang, Ying, Kumaran, Santhosh, Ivan, Anca-Andreea, Kapoor, Shubir, Bagchi, Sugato, Ramachandra, Thejaswini, Hu, Hai Tao, Nguyen, Lun Quoc, Fu, Shiwa S.
• Application Number:
  US12/060,982
• Publication Number:
  US 20080183530A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination

Abstract

A mechanism provides a model-driven solution template-based approach for managed business services. Key assets of the business services are templatized and made configurable. The mechanism implements a metamodel describing standard service offerings that can be configured to meet specific business and operational requirements at a level of business process and system components. A cost and pricing model of service offerings helps assess the service costs and resource requirements based on a client'"'"'s selection of standard and customized processes and system components. A supporting system solution is developed based upon underlying solution templates and solution artifacts as well as client-specific requirements.

Claims

1. A model-driven solution template-based apparatus for managed business services wherein key assets of the business services are templatized and made configurable comprising:

a metamodel describing standard service offerings that can be configured to meet specific business and operational requirements at a level of business process and system components;

a set of tools to support and facilitate an on-boarding process including a structured way of capturing client data, analyzing the content of collected data, configuring solution templates, and a rapid application integration utility;

a cost and pricing model of service offerings that can help assess the service costs and resource requirements based on a client'"'"'s selection of standard and customized processes and system components; and

a supporting system solution based upon underlying solution templates and solution artifacts as well as client-specific requirements.

2. The model-driven solution template-based apparatus for managed business services according to claim 1, wherein said set of tools comprises:

a process modeler used to capture standard business processes and their deviations;

an interview template used to capture a client'"'"'s requirements for processes, systems, applications and data formats; and

a solution template for composing and configuring process and integration solution templates.

3. The model-driven solution template-based apparatus for managed business services according to claim 2, wherein the solution template composer composes and configures business processes and Information Technology (IT) integration level templates in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format.

4. The model-driven solution template-based apparatus for managed business services according to claim 2, further comprising a database server for storing user profiles to authenticate users of the set of tools and controlling when contents of the set of tools are to be used.

5. The model-driven solution template-based apparatus for managed business services according to claim 4, wherein the database server is a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server.

6. The model-driven solution template-based apparatus for managed business services according to claim 2, wherein the supporting system solution comprises:

a rapid application integration module including an application adapter for interacting with client applications and an application configuration utility to convert business and Information Technology (IT) requirements into configuration data/scripts used for automated or manual configuration of an application instance for the client;

an integration server used for application integration; and

an asset repository for capturing solution artifacts.

7. A computer assisted method providing a model-driven solution template-based approach for managed business services comprising the steps of:

gathering client requirements using an interview template to generate a decision tree;

analyzing client requirements using a requirements analysis model based on the decision tree generated by gathering client requirements;

developing a managed business service template based on analyzing client requirements, said business service template being configured to incorporate customized templates specific to the client'"'"'s requirements;

estimating cost of a solution generated by the developed managed business service template using a cost and pricing model of service offerings; and

using the developed managed business service template to generate runtime executable code to implement the business solution for the client.

8. The computer assisted method providing a model-driven solution template-based approach for managed business services according to claim 7, wherein the step of gathering client requirements using an interview template is performed with the aid of a Graphic User Interface (GUI) screen consisting of a set of questions to be answered during an interview, the GUI screen being supported by an underlying decision tree defined by an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema.

9. The computer assisted method providing a model-driven solution template-based approach for managed business services according to claim 7, wherein the steps of analyzing client requirements and developing a managed business service template are performed with a set of tools including a process modeler that captures standard business processes and their deviations and a solution template composer for composing and configuring process and integration solution templates in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format.