SOFTWARE FOR MODEL-BASED CONFIGURATION CONSTRAINT GENERATION

• US 20100153149A1
• Filed: 12/12/2008
• Published: 06/17/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Prigge, Uta, Kaetker, Stefan, Stallmann, Florian
• Application Number:
  US12/333,874
• Publication Number:
  US 20100153149A1
• 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 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management

Abstract

This disclosure provides various embodiments of systems, software, and computerized methods for generating one or more business adaptation constraints. In one aspect, the software identifies at least one business option associated with a business adaptation catalog, and then identifies at least one variable application entity in an application mapped to the at least one identified business option. The software determines one or more application integrity constraints associated with the at least one identified variable application entity, and computes one or more business adaptation catalog constraints associated with the at least one identified business option based on the one or more determined application integrity constraints associated with the at least one identified variable application entity. The software then inserts the one or more computed business adaptation catalog constraints associated with the at least one identified business option into the business adaptation catalog.

Claims

1. Software for automatically generating one or more business adaptation catalog constraints, the software comprising computer-readable instructions embodied on tangible media and operable when executed to:

identify at least one business option associated with a business adaptation catalog;

identify at least one variable application entity in an application mapped to the at least one identified business option;

determine one or more application integrity constraints associated with the at least one identified variable application entity;

compute one or more business adaptation catalog constraints associated with the at least one identified business option based on the one or more determined application integrity constraints associated with the at least one identified variable application entity; and

insert the one or more computed business adaptation catalog constraints associated with the at least one identified business option into the business adaptation catalog.

2. The software of claim 1 further operable when executed to generate a business adaptation model representing the one or more inserted computed business adaptation catalog constraints.

3. The software of claim 1 further operable to present a business application catalog model including the one or more inserted computer business adaptation catalog constraints to a user via an interface.

4. The software of claim 1 further operable to store the business application catalog including the one or more inserted computer business adaptation catalog constraints in a tangible memory.

5. The software of claim 1, wherein inserting the one or more computed business adaptation catalog constraints associated with the at least one identified business option comprises replacing at least one business adaptation catalog constraint defined for the business adaptation catalog prior to computing the one or more business adaptation catalog constraints.

6. The software of claim 1, wherein identifying the at least one variable application entity in the application mapped to the at least one identified business option comprises deriving the mapping from a business adaptation to architecture model.

7. The software of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more application integrity constraints associated with the at least one identified variable application entity comprises deriving the application integrity constraints from a process component constraint model.

8. The software of claim 1 further operable to verify one or more business adaptation constraints associated with the at least one business option prior to computing the one or more business adaptation catalog constraints by comparing the prior-existing business adaptation constraints associated with the at least one business option to the computed business adaptation catalog constraints related to the at least one business option.

9. The software of claim 1 further operable to replace the one or more prior-existing business adaptation catalog constraints with the computed business adaptation catalog constraints when the prior-existing business adaptation catalog constraints are not equivalent to the computed business adaptation catalog constraints.

10. The software of claim 1 further operable to automatically optimize the one or more computed business adaptation catalog constraints added to the business adaptation catalog.

11. The software of claim 1 further operable to:

receive one or more additional restrictive constraints for the business adaptation catalog from a user after the one or more computed business adaptation catalog constraints have been added to the business adaptation catalog; and

add the one or more received additional restrictive constraints to the business adaptation catalog.

12. The software of claim 11 further operable to automatically optimize the business adaptation catalog constraints after the one or more received additional restrictive constraints are added to the business adaptation catalog.

13. The software of claim 1, wherein the at least one variable application entity comprises either a business process variant type or a configuration control.

14. The software of claim 1, wherein the business adaptation catalog contains no constraints prior to computing the one or more business adaptation catalog constraints associated with the at least one identified business option.

15. The software of claim 1, wherein identifying the at least one variable application entity in the application mapped to the at least one identified business option comprises:

retrieving a first set of hierarchical information associated with the application;

retrieving a second set of hierarchical information associated with the business adaptation catalog;

determining a first set of business configuration data associated with at least one variable application entity included within the first set of hierarchical information;

determining a second set of business configuration data associated with at least one business option included within the second set of hierarchical information; and

mapping a connection between the at least one variable application entity and the at least one business option where the first set of business configuration data associated with the at least one variable application entity corresponds to the second set of business configuration data associated with the at least one business option.