PROCESS INTEGRATION FOR SERVICE ORIENTED

NETWORKED APPLICATIONS

Xianpeng Huangfu

, Aimin Luo

1,2

National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Information System Engineering

National University of Defense Technology, China

Informatics Research Center, University of Reading, England

Li Huang

, Honghui Chen

1,3

, Xueshan Luo

National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Information System Engineering

National University of Defense Technology, China

Department of Computer Science, University of Leicester, England

Keywords: Process Integration, Service Oriented Architecture, Networked Applications.

Abstract: With the development of information, the paradigm in distributed networked applications is shifting towards

Service Oriented Architecture, which has some good quality of louse coupled, reused, opened and integrated

attributes. Single service can only satisfy some certain requirement, only large scale of integration can solve

the conflicts between demands and supply. It involves three layers’ integration, the bottom data integration,

the middle process integration and the uppermost architecture integration. The paper mainly focuses on the

middle process integration. The paper makes use of object Petri net language to construct five meta-models

of sequence, alternative, parallel, arbitrary sequence, and iteration operations and studies some

characteristics of these meta-models. On the basis of the above analysis, we make further research on

process integration methods and models. Finally, process integration algorithm and analysis are made,

which verifies the improvement of process analysis and implementation efficiency.

1 INTRODUCTION

As the development of information technology and

software architecture, Service Oriented Architecture

(SOA) has been paid more and more attention. The

paradigm in distributed networked applications is

shifting towards Service Oriented Architecture

where services play as basic elements. SOA has

some good quality of louse coupled, reused, opened

and integrated attributes. However, users’

requirements become more and more complicated,

and single service can not satisfy the needs any

more. Service integration is needed to realize

complicated business requirement.

Service integration is a process that existed

services are dynamically discovered under certain

rules, and are organized as a large service or system,

to satisfy users’ complicated needs and improve the

software productivity. With the growing number of

alternative services that provide the same

functionality but differ in quality parameters, and the

business process becomes more and more

complicated, service integration is not just

concerned with the services themselves. Service

integration contains the bottom data integration, the

middle process integration and the uppermost

architecture integration. In recent years, some simple

process integration applications have been used

widely by many service vendors such as airline

companies and hotels to satisfy their customers’

various demands and improve their profits.

It is more desirable if the whole process can be

determined in advance. Some research on Markov

process and Petri Net workflow is partially similar to

process integration, which gives us some instructive

inspiration. Only considering the bottom data

integration without the high level process integration

is not a practical solution for service oriented

applications. The process integration paradigm and

its realization provide a promising solution for the

236

Huangfu X., Chen H., Luo X., Huang L. and Luo A.

PROCESS INTEGRATION FOR SERVICE ORIENTED NETWORKED APPLICATIONS.

DOI: 10.5220/0003266902360241

In Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations (ICISO 2010), page

ISBN: 978-989-8425-26-3

seamless integration of service oriented applications

to create new value-added services.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows.

Section 2 introduces the framework of integration

for service oriented networked applications. Section

3 proposes the process integration based on object

Petri net. In Section 4, we will discuss the related

work. Finally, Section 5 draws the conclusion and

future work.

2 FRAMEWORK INTEGRATION

FOR SERVICE ORIENTED

NETWORKED APPLICATIONS

Service oriented networked applications has become

more and more popular. To study architecture

integration hierarchy structure is of great necessity

for the inner process integration.

2.1 Overall Integration Framework

Lots of systems have adopted service oriented

architecture as a novel solution to high efficiently

implement on the net. SOA has the excellent

characteristics of louse-coupled, reused, opened and

integrated attributes, which has the special kinds of

data structure, process construction and top-level

architecture. Now the popular data structure for

service oriented networked applications is based on

XML schema. In the middle level, the process

modeling and construction are the basic mechanism

to fulfill the function of the systems. On the top

level, the system architecture is the blue print

governing the system design, implementation and

evolution over time..



Figure 1: The overall integration framework.

The overall integration framework is depicted in Fig

1. The third level is the fundament data layer, which

depicts the XML-based schema, and is involved

with XML-based data integration. The second level

is the process layer, which depicts the process

modeling and is involved with process integration

mechanism. And the first level is concerned with

architecture integration for service oriented

networked systems.

Certainly, the all three layers are not isolated by

each other; and the successful operation of each

layer is dependent on the support and restriction of

other two layers. For example, the process

integration should consider the specific data

structure and realized manner. Different data

structure determines the upper algorithm and

integrated method. On the other hand, the process

integration should also consider the framework of

the system. Because each bottom detail is carried out

under the constraints of the system architecture.

Some conflict and inconsistency will result in the

communication congestion and difficulty, even the

whole system redesign and reconstuction.

2.2 XML-based Integration

XML has become the de-facto standard format for

representing structured amd semi-structured data

among various applications and databases on the

Web. The Document Type Definition (DTD) or

W3C XML Schema definition language (WXS) can

be used to define the standard schema which

describes the syntax and structure of XML

documents. XML schema is a formalized description

language, which uses lots of announcement sentence

to ensure the standardization. Here we just give a

simple entity integration example based on XML.

<? xml version=’1.0’ ?>

<! DOCTYPE a SYSTEM “keyvalue.txt”[

<! ENTITY % key “Coke” > <! ENTITY

% value “Good”>

<! ENTITY % key “Tea” > <! ENTITY %

value “Delicious”>

The fundamental data integration is foundation

stone to study integration field The XML-based

integration is not so easy just like the above codes.

We should consider the data storage manner, data

accessing interface, syntax and semantic confliction,

and so on. Because of the standard description

PROCESS INTEGRATION FOR SERVICE ORIENTED NETWORKED APPLICATIONS

237

manner of XML, the integration of data layer

becomes much easier than some other data structure.

2.3 Architecture Integration

As the definition of DoD Architecture Framework,

Architecture is the structure of components, their

relationships, and the principles and guidelines

governing their design and evolution over time. The

architecture is involved with all the upper design and

lower detail realization, so the architecture

integration is much more complicated not only for

the service oriented systems, but also for other

various systems. By the methods of process

reconstruction, function optimization, and structure

reconstruction, architecture integration will establish

an integrative platform.

Figure 2: The common architecture integration structure.

Fig 2 depicts the common architecture integration

structure, which contains three research fields:

physical integration, information integration and

application integration. Thereinto, the application

integration is the hot research field and can be

subdivided into organization integration, knowledge

integration and process integration. The paper

mainly focuses on the process integration in the

application layer. On the other hand, SOA has been

proven to be a flexible and extensible architecture

for designing and realizing industry solutions and

networked applications. The process integration in

such a specific architeture should be paid more

emphases to the process cooperation, redundancy

elimination and overall optimization, and so on.

3 PROCESS INTEGRATION

BASED ON OBJECT PETRI

NET

A multitude and diversity of networked applications

appear on the net.To hunt for a flexible and efficient

process integration method is of great help to save

network resources and improve service quality.

3.1 Object Petri Net (OPN)

Petri Net is a kind of modeling tool which is fit for

describing and analyzing discrete dynamic system,

especially parallel system.

The information carried by Place, Transition and

Token in Petri Net is not rich, and is short of

semantic description function. The space explosion

problem of Petri Net limits the modeling and

analysis ability for large systems. In order to satisfy

the requirement of modeling and simulation of

C4ISR systems, Object Petri Net Modeling

Simulation Environment is developed by the C4ISR

key lab of National University of Defense

Technology. The Object Petri Net Description

Language (OPDL) is designed. The service

description, arithmetic operator analysis, process

integration and modeling simulation in the paper are

based on OPN and OPMSE.

Definition 1 The service OPN formalized

description is an eight-tuples

(,, , , , , , )cpS P T SubS IP OP F M C

is the place set of service state,

is the set

of Transition,

SubOBJ is the set of sub service

objects.

IP is the set of service input ports, OP is the

set of service output ports. The input and output

interfaces are divided into two kinds: interior input

port

IIP , exterior input port OIP , interior output

port

IOP , exterior output port OOP . The objects

interact with their sub service objects by

IIP and

IOP , and interact with exterior users and simulation

environment by

OIP and OOP .

()SIP N and ()SOP N denote the sets of exterior

input ports and output ports of all sub objects,

()

() ( )

obj SubOBJ N

SIP N OIP obj

∈

U ，

()

() ( )

obj SubOBJ N

SOP N OOP obj

∈

U .

F is a flow relation in service composition,

F P T T P IIP T T IOP OIP T T OOP⊆× × × × × ×UU U U U

: ( ) (0,1, 2,...)M P IIP IOP OIP OOP →UU U U

the initial mark, and represents the state mark.

C IOP SIP SOP IIP SOP SIP⊆× × ×UU is link

relation.

In Fig 3, the numbers in Place and Port denote

initial mark, called Token number. A pane with

crewel in the middle denotes object. A concentric

cirque denotes input port. A cirque embedded a

ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations

238

triangle denotes output port. Here

0S denotes a

switch. A switch is lighted when it receives a token,

but it doesn’t set each place a token. First the switch

executes an act function and finishes the

distribution. According to the designed token type in

the channel, the token is distributed to appropriate

place.

Figure 3: Object Petri Net example.

There are five kinds of functions in the object Petri

Net modeling simulation environment designed by

National University of Defense Technology. The

according relation is depicted in table 1. The

function is written by VBScript, which extends the

element attribute and strengthen the support of

modeling simulation. In this paper we mainly use act

function in switch and event handing function in

place.

Table 1: The relation of functions and elements in

OPMSE.

Function Type

Obj-

ect

Pla-

Trans-

ition

Swi-

tch

Arc

Port

Instantiation

EventHanding

Act

Delay

Predication

3.2 Process Integration Meta-model

According to process integration requirement, we

define five kinds of meta-models based on the

description of OPN. The sequence operation

definition is shown below, which can realize the

sequence operation in the process integration.

Definition 2 sequence operation: Service

12 0

(,, ,,,,,)S S S P T SubS IP OP F M C=⊥ = , ⊥ is the

sequence operator of service composition.

Here

111 1111101

(,, , , , , , )S P T SubS IP OP F M C= ,

222 2222202

(,, , , , , , )S P T SubS IP OP F M C= , depicted in

Fig 4:

Figure 4: Service sequence operation.



PPP= U

;



{}TTT t= UU ;



1212

{, }SubS SubS SubS cpS cpS

UU ;



IP IP

;



OP OP

;



12 1 2

{( , ),( , )}

FF OPttIP⊆ UU ;



01020

× ;



12 12

CCC OPIP⊆×UU ;

Table 2 expresses the five kinds of meta-models for

process integration., which are sequence, parallel,

alternative, arbitrary sequence, iteration operations.

They can fulfill the according function like their

names’ expressions.

Table 2: Five meta-models and the arithmetic operators.

Meta-

models

Expr-

ession

Arithmetic operator

sequence

operation

⊥

12 0

(,, , , , , , )SS S PTSubSIPOPFMC=⊥=

parallel

operation

12 0

|| (,, ,,,,,)SSS PTSubSIPOPFMC

alternative

operation

⊕

12 0

(,, , , , , , )S S S P T SubS IP OP F M C=⊕ =

arbitrary

sequence

12 0

(,, , , , , , )S S S P T SubS IP OP F M C

Θ=

iteration

operation

(,, , , , , , )S S P T SubS IP OP F M C

According to the above five meta-models, we can

get more complicated arithmetic operators. Table 3

shows some deductive arithmetic operators from

five basic meta-models. For arithmetic operator (1),

the three services

123

,,SSS ,

12 3

()SSS S=⊥⊥ ,

123

'()SS S S

⊥⊥, the inputs are all

IP , the outputs’

end marks are all

()

OP , So we can

get

'cpS cpS

. In the same way, the other arithmetic

operators can be proofed.

Table 3: Some deductive arithmetic operators from five

basic metamodels.

12 31 23

() ()SS SS SS

⊥

⊥=⊥ ⊥

（1）

12 3 1 23

( || ) || || ( || )SS S S S S=

（2）

12 31 23

() ()SS SS SS

⊕

⊕=⊕ ⊕

（3）

1221

SSSS

⊕

=⊕

（4）

12 3 13 23

()()()SS S SS SS⊕⊥=⊥⊕⊥

（5）

123 13 23

()||(||)(||)SSS SS SS

⊕

=⊕

（6）

12 1 2 2 1

()()SS S S S SΘ= ⊥ ⊕ ⊥

（7）

11 1 1 1

...SSS SS

⊥⊥⊥

44474448

（8）

PROCESS INTEGRATION FOR SERVICE ORIENTED NETWORKED APPLICATIONS

239

3.3 Process Integration Algorithm

By making use of OPN methods and tools, we get

the formalized description of service and process.To

study the input, output, control and Mechanism of

process integration for service oriented networked

applications, we can comprehend the integration

schema more clearly. The ICOM of process

integration is depicted in Fig 5.



Process to be

integrated

Process

integration

products

Process integration for

service oriented networked

applications

OPN methods

and tools

metamodels

Process integration

goal, rules and scope

Figure 5: The ICOM of process integration.

Service oriented applications are based on the XML

data schema, and standard architecture description.

Then we studies the five basic meta-models based

on OPN and their arithmetic operators. In algorithm

1, we will introduce an algorithm to do the process

integration.

Algorithm 1: Process Integration Algorithm

Require：Candidate process,

Requirements

1. Input the candidate process set,

then create the according requirement

space

2. Analyze the candidate process by

integration meta-models to produce the

basic elements and mutual relation.

3. Analyze the rules and constraints

of the requirement to produce the

formalized restriction.

4. Under the rules of overall

architecture, reconstruct the basic

elements of candidate process

5. For the desired process

integration, eliminate redundancy and

optimize the whole process

6. Process integration is done.

According to Algorithm 1, we could divide the

candidate process into basic elements, and

reconstruct the process integration, then eliminate

redundancy and optimize the whole process, finally

reach successful process integration.

4 RELATED WORK

Mayerl etc. present an approach how demands on

applications can be derived from service

management processes as extensions of traditional

management processes. To extend traditional

management applications with additional service

management applications they propose an

integration based on a service-oriented architecture.

Hentrich etc. introduce a pattern language that

deals with process modeling, execution, and

integration. Its main goal is to help solution

architects, as well as process and service designers,

to master the challenges in designing a stable and

evolvable process-driven SOA.

To synthesize existing IT resources and make

them integrated and cooperative to gain maximum

benefit, Jing Bo etc. put forward an architecture for

business process orchestration and integration based

on the philosophy of service-oriented architecture.

According to the architecture proposed, a platform

was implemented using service-oriented technology.

Real-world application shows that the platform can

meet the current industry needs well.

Kong.Jaehyun etc. introduce a methodology that

uses event-driven service technology and active rule

processing for business process integration of

ubiquitous enterprises. The event-driven approach to

business process integration can supplement the

service-oriented enterprise architecture by

facilitating real-time event processing and

distributed service coordination.

Shah, Vikas S etc. introduce an RT-ECM

architecture framework illustrating most prominent

technical challenges during establishment of

business process perceptive integration and time

sensitive content flow management. Real-time

content management engines, business process

engines, and service provisioning are at the centre of

presented framework.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORK

According to the characteristic of service oriented

networked applications, the paper studies the overall

integration framework, which can be divided into

three layers. We make some discussions about the

fundamental XML-based integration and the

uppermost architecture integration. The core of the

paper mainly focuses on the middle process

integration. We make use of object Petri net

language to construct five meta-models of sequence,

alternative, parallel, arbitrary sequence, and iteration

operations and study some characteristics of these

meta-models. On the basis of the above analysis, we

make further research on process integration

methods and models. Finally, process integration

algorithm and analysis are made, which verifies the

ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations

240

improvement of process analysis and

implementation efficiency

In the future, we will continue to focus on the

fields of the middle process integration and the

upper architecture integration. Improving the

efficiency of process integration, studying the

uppermost architecture integration, and the design

and realization of prototype system are three

research aspects.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research has been partially funded by the

National Natural Science Foundation of China under

Grant No.70601036, and Hunan Provincial

Innovation Foundation For Postgraduate.

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