System and method of dynamic service composition for business process outsourcing

• US 7,114,146 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2003
• Issued: 09/26/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Zhang, Liang-Jie, Chao, Tian-Jy, Zhou, Qun, Chung, Jen-Yao, Chang, Hung-yang (Henry), Sayah, John Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHAVIS, JOHN Q
• Application Number:
  US10/428,076
• Publication Number:
  US 20040220910A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,243 Days
• Field of Search: 717/106
• US Class Current: 717/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/04 Forecasting or optimisation specially adapted for administrative or management purposes, e.g. linear programming or "cutting stock problem" market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities G06Q30/0202
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03

Abstract

A system and method for capturing a plurality of business requirements using a Business Process Outsourcing Language (BPOL), an XML representation for expressing business process flow rules, preferences, business rules and event-action mappings as well as service links, to automate the process of generating business processes for use with Web services. BPOL is used to dynamically construct a search script for an advanced Web services discovery engine to find Web services from both UDDI registries and Web services Inspection Language (WSIL) documents and then create a qualified service list. Then a service selection problem is mapped into a solution space {0,1} for use by an optimization algorithm that performs second level service selection of the best set of services based on the requirements.

Claims

1. A method for composing an optimal business process using existing Web services, comprising the steps of:

capturing customer business requirements;

recording said business requirements in a uniform representation, said uniform representation using a standard vocabulary of terms for specifying tasks satisfying said business requirements and using a language structure for relating said specified tasks in a business process flow;

automatically generating a search script from said uniform representation, said search script being usable by Web services to identify one or more service providers for each of said specified tasks, said one or more identified service providers being placed on a qualified service list for said specified task;

using an optimization algorithm to automatically select a service provider for each task from said respective qualified service list, said optimization algorithm optimizing said business process flow; and

automatically transforming the optimal business process into a business process flow language for execution.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimal business process consists of one or more Web services, each said Web Service being categorized by its task and a collection of services with the same category being identified as a Web services cluster.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said relating of specified tasks comprises parallel and sequential relationships among the Web services clusters, and said language structure uses flow rules to describe said relationships.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said uniform representation is a Requirement Annotation, said flow rules being described by said Requirement Annotation, and wherein said business requirements are described with a customer preference, business rules, a relational link and event/action mappings.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the customer preference is captured in a Business Process Outsourcing Language (BPOL).

6. The method of claim 4, wherein said business rules comprise derivation rules and event rules, and wherein one or more steps of a business process can be encoded in the form of reaction rules using the event rules, said encoding enabling seamless integration of template based composition of said business process flow with event-driven composition of said business process flow.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein said relational link describes a relationship among business entities, business services and operations at different granularities.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein an event list is used to capture said event/action mappings for event driven composition of business process flow.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein said Requirement Annotation is used to generate a search script to perform a multiple search query via an advanced Web Service discovery engine, said Web Service discovery engine dynamically finding a narrowed-down list of Web services needed to compose the optimal business process.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein said optimization algorithm is a Genetic Algorithm, and a Web services cluster is represented as a single “

gene” and

a business process is represented as a single “

chromosome”

having a plurality of “

genes”

within said Genetic Algorithm, and wherein an optimal chromosome is converted back to the optimal business process after application of the Genetic Algorithm.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of providing an output adaptor to automatically convert the optimal business process into a flow language.

12. A system for composing an optimal business process using existing Web services, comprising:

means for capturing customer business requirements;

means for recording said business requirements in a uniform representation, said uniform representation using a standard vocabulary of terms for specifying tasks satisfying said business requirements and using a language structure for relating said specified tasks in a business process flow;

means for automatically generating a search script from said uniform representation, said search script being usable by Web services to identify one or more service providers for each of said specified tasks, said one or more identified service providers being placed on a qualified service list for said specified task;

means for using an optimization algorithm to automatically select a service provider for each task from said respective qualified service list, said optimization algorithm optimizing said business process flow; and

means for automatically transforming the optimal business process into a business process flow language for execution.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the optimal business process consists of one or more Web services, each said Web Service being categorized by its task and a collection of services with the same category being identified as a Web services cluster.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein said relating of specified tasks comprises parallel and sequential relationships among the Web services clusters, and said language structure uses flow rules to describe said relationships.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein said uniform representation is a Requirement Annotation, said flow rules being described by said Requirement Annotation, and wherein said business requirements are described with a customer preference, business rules, a relational link and event/action mappings.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the customer preference is captured in a BPOL.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein said business rules comprise derivation rules and event rules, and wherein one or more steps of a business process can be encoded in the form of reaction rules using the event rules, said encoding enabling seamless integration of template based composition of said business process flow with event-driven composition of said business process flow.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein said relational link describes a relationship among business entities, business services and operations at different granularities.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein an event list is used to capture said event/action mappings for event driven composition of business process flow.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein said Requirement Annotation is used to generate a search script to perform a multiple search query via an advanced Web Service discovery engine, said Web Service discovery engine dynamically finding a narrowed-down list of Web services needed to compose the optimal business process.

21. The system of claim 13, wherein said optimization algorithm is a Genetic Algorithm, and a Web services cluster is represented as a single “

gene” and

a business process is represented as a single “

chromosome”

having a plurality of “

genes”

within said Genetic Algorithm, and wherein an optimal chromosome is converted back to the optimal business process after application of the Genetic Algorithm.

22. The system of claim 12, further comprising the step of providing an output adaptor to automatically convert the optimal business process into a flow language.

23. A computer readable medium containing code for composing an optimal business process using existing Web services, the code further comprising:

first code for capturing customer business requirements;

second code for recording said business requirements in a uniform representation, said uniform representation using a standard vocabulary of terms for specifying tasks satisfying said business requirements and using a language structure for relating said specified tasks in a business process flow;

third code for automatically generating a search script from said uniform representation, said search script being usable by Web services to identify one or more service providers for each of said specified tasks, said one or more identified service providers being placed on a qualified service list for said specified task;

fourth code for using an optimization algorithm to automatically select a service provider for each task from said respective qualified service list, said optimization algorithm optimizing said business process flow; and

fifth code for automatically transforming the optimal business process into a business process flow language for execution.