Evaluation of fitness for a contractual agreement related to provisioning information technology services

• US 8,103,535 B2
• Filed: 01/29/2008
• Issued: 01/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Grabarnik, Genady Y., Kanevsky, Dimitri, Ludwig, Heiko, Shwartz, Larisa
• Primary Examiner(s): Jarrett, Scott L
• Assistant Examiner(s): Koneru, Sujay
• Application Number:
  US12/021,820
• Publication Number:
  US 20090192842A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,456 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/7.23
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06313 Resource planning in a project environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow 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 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors

Abstract

The exemplary embodiments of the invention provide computer programs, methods, apparatus and systems that describe techniques providing improved evaluation of business processes based on considerations such as throughput and/or parallelization. As a non-limiting example, such techniques may be useful for evaluating agreements between entities, such as service level agreements between a service provider and another entity (e.g., a supplier or customer of the service provider), for example. In one exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method includes: obtaining a workflow model having a plurality of atomic processes, each atomic process having a distribution of throughput; determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model using the distributions of throughput of the atomic processes; and outputting a determination of whether an agreement relating to the workflow model is fit based on the determined overall distribution of throughput.

Claims

1. A method for determining whether an agreement for a process is fit, where the agreement relates to provisioning of information technology services, comprising:

obtaining, by an apparatus, a workflow model representative of the process, wherein the process comprises a plurality of atomic sub-processes, wherein each atomic sub-process has a probability distribution of throughput, wherein the throughput of an atomic sub-process is indicative of a number of requests that the atomic sub-process is capable of processing per time unit, wherein the agreement defines contractual commitments for interactions occurring between at least two entities in accordance with the process, where the agreement relates to provisioning of information technology services;

determining, by the apparatus, an overall probability distribution of throughput for the process using the probability distributions of throughput of the atomic sub-processes and the workflow model, wherein the throughput of the process is indicative of a number of requests that the process is capable of processing per time unit, wherein the determined overall probability distribution of throughput for the process is further based on a parallelization level of the atomic sub-processes, wherein the parallelization level of an atomic sub-process is indicative of a number of parallel requests that the atomic sub-process is capable of concurrently executing, where at least one atomic sub-process is characterized by a switch element, wherein the switch element is an output synchronization element that allows for choosing one of n possible outputs, wherein the switch element is unaffected by the parallelization level of the at least one atomic sub-process, wherein the switch element transforms a probability distribution of execution time for the at least one atomic sub-process by multiplying the probability distribution of execution time by a probability of choosing the one of n possible outputs; and

outputting, by the apparatus, a determination of whether the agreement for the process is fit based on the determined overall probability distribution of throughput, wherein the determination of whether the agreement is fit is further based on an overall probability distribution of execution time for the process and a profit and loss function for the agreement.

2. The method as in claim 1, wherein determining an overall probability distribution of throughput for the process comprises removing a loop from the workflow model.

3. The method as in claim 1, further comprising:

determining the overall probability distribution of execution time for the process using probability distributions of execution time of the atomic sub-processes.

4. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine for performing operations to determine whether an agreement for a process is fit where the agreement relates to provisioning of information technology services, said operations comprising:

obtaining a workflow model representative of the process, wherein the process comprises a plurality of atomic sub-processes, wherein each atomic sub-process has a probability distribution of throughput, wherein the throughput of an atomic sub-process is indicative of a number of requests that the atomic sub-process is capable of processing per time unit, wherein the agreement defines contractual commitments for interactions occurring between at least two entities in accordance with the process, where the agreement relates to provisioning of information technology services;

determining an overall probability distribution of throughput for the process using the probability distributions of throughput of the atomic sub-processes and the workflow model, wherein the throughput of the process is indicative of a number of requests that the process is capable of processing per time unit, wherein the determined overall probability distribution of throughput for the process is further based on a parallelization level of the atomic sub-processes, wherein the parallelization level of an atomic sub-process is indicative of a number of parallel requests that the atomic sub-process is capable of concurrently executing, where at least one atomic sub-process is characterized by a switch element, wherein the switch element is an output synchronization element that allows for choosing one of n possible outputs, wherein the switch element is unaffected by the parallelization level of the at least one atomic sub-process, wherein the switch element transforms a probability distribution of execution time for the at least one atomic sub-process by multiplying the probability distribution of execution time by a probability of choosing the one of n possible outputs; and

outputting a determination of whether the agreement for the process is fit based on the determined overall probability distribution of throughput, wherein the determination of whether the agreement is fit is further based on overall probability distribution of execution time for the process and a profit and loss function for the agreement.

5. The program storage device as in claim 4, wherein determining an overall probability distribution of throughput for the process comprises removing a loop from the workflow model.

6. The program storage device as in claim 4, said operations further comprising:

determining the overall probability distribution of execution time for the process using probability distributions of execution time of the atomic sub-processes.

7. The program storage device as in claim 4, wherein the workflow model is representative of a business process.

8. A processing device comprising:

an input configured to receive a workflow model representative of a process, wherein the process comprises a plurality of atomic sub-processes, wherein each atomic sub-process has a probability distribution of throughput, wherein the throughput of an atomic sub-process is indicative of a number of requests that the atomic sub-process is capable of processing per time unit, wherein the agreement defines contractual commitments for interactions occurring between at least two entities in accordance with the process, where the agreement relates to provisioning of information technology services;

a processing unit configured to determine an overall probability distribution of throughput for the process using the probability distributions of throughput of the atomic sub-processes and the workflow model, wherein the throughput of the process is indicative of a number of requests that the process is capable of processing per time unit, wherein the determined overall probability distribution of throughput for the process is further based on a parallelization level of the atomic sub-processes, wherein the parallelization level of an atomic sub-process is indicative of a number of parallel requests that the atomic sub-process is capable of concurrently executing, where at least one atomic sub-process is characterized by a switch element, wherein the switch element is an output synchronization element that allows for choosing one of n possible outputs, wherein the switch element is unaffected by the parallelization level of the at least one atomic sub-process, wherein the switch element transforms a probability distribution of execution time for the at least one atomic sub-process by multiplying the probability distribution of execution time by a probability of choosing the one of n possible outputs; and

an output configured to output a determination of whether the agreement for the process is fit based on the determined overall probability distribution of throughput, wherein the determination of whether the agreement is fit is further based on an overall probability distribution of execution time for the process and a profit and loss function for the agreement.

9. The processing device as in claim 8, wherein the processing unit determining an overall probability distribution of throughput for the process comprises the processing unit removing a loop from the workflow model.