A MOBILE BUSINESS PROCESS DEPLOYMENT FRAMEWORK

FOR DEVICE INDEPENDENCE AND CONTEXT-AWARE

ENVIRONMENTS

Torab Torabi, Saqib Ali and Hassan Ali

Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering

La Trobe University, Melbourne 3086, Australia

Keywords: Business processes, Location aware, device independence, context-aware.

Abstract: Deployment of a business process to mobile devices in different context and in a device independence

environment is a challenging task. The desirable is that a Business Process could be deployed to any mobile

device in any location or environment the user operates. One obstacle in business process deployment on

mobile devices is the rapid changes in mobile technologies. In this research we have developed and

implemented a mobile business process deployment framework that caters for both device independence

and context-aware environments. In this paper the focus is on how device independence and context-

awareness can be integrated for mobile business processes deployment.

1 INTRODUCTION

The companies recently have been paying a great

deal of attention to the potential of mobile

communication technologies to redefine and extend

the world of traditional E-Business by making its

applications more available to the mobile users.

According to (Swaminathan and S.R.Tayur 2003),

E-business is defined as “a business process that

uses internet or other electronic medium as a

channel to complete business transactions”.

Mobile Business is often described as the

successor of electronic business and defined as the

subset of it (Adam, Chikova et al. 2005). It is

assumed that any business operations performed by

desktop computer can also be performed via

wireless network. However mobile technology

offers additional possibilities that are unique to the

wireless world and cannot be performed via fixed

network. For example, providing the mobile users

with the services of location aware and context-

aware applications which cannot be performed with

a fixed internet connection (Zhang, Archer et al.

2003). Mobile business can be defined as the

exchange of goods, services, and information using

mobile devices (Paavilainen 2002) .

Mobile Services are usually characterized by

mobility; reach-ability, localization, and

identification (Kaasinen 2003) (Siau and Shen

2003). Mobility is the central distinguishing feature

of mobile technology. As mobile devices constantly

accompany their users, people can receive and send

data regardless of place and time. They can also be

reached by people at all times. This feature is

especially useful to logistic and supply chain

companies that regularly need to reach their mobile

workforce to allocate various tasks to them.

The success of the recent applications is based

not only on new technology, but rather on its proper

use (Liang and Wei 2004). Wireless applications

would be advantageous only when they can be

useful to their end users (Kalakota and Robinson

2001). Mobile business value proposition originate

from the fusion of the wireless technology with

already available electronic business applications.

On the other hand, the unique features of mobile

business – mobility, localization give rise to

emergence of completely new applications and

business models.

1.1 Mobile Business Processes

according to Davenport (Davenport 1992) a

business process can be defined as “a specific

ordering of work activities across time and place,

with a beginning, an end, and clearly identified

209

Torabi T., Ali S. and Ali H. (2008).

A MOBILE BUSINESS PROCESS DEPLOYMENT FRAMEWORK FOR DEVICE INDEPENDENCE AND CONTEXT-AWARE ENVIRONMENTS.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 209-216

DOI: 10.5220/0001914002090216

 SciTePress

inputs and outputs: a structure for action.” The

business profit depends on efficient delivery of

goods and services controlled by business process

(Ali, Torabi et al. 2006) (Ali, Soh et al. 2005). So

there is a need for the companies to make use of the

technologies to make their product more profitable

and their services more efficient.

Many companies have been able to make their

traditional business processes into mobile business

processes. “Mobile Business Process” is a business

process, when a place of execution of an activity can

be different in different instances of the business

process or places can change during the execution of

an activity (Ritz and Stender 2003) (Berger, Bouzid

et al. 2003). Mobile Business Processes can be

based on these three assumptions:

• “Uncertainty of Location”.

• “Uncertainty of Location” is externally

determined, and

• A corporation with external resources is

needed in the execution of the process.

1.2 Context-Aware Mobile

Applications

Context means situational information, or as

(Barkhuss and Dey 2003) states: “Context is any

information that can be used to characterize the

situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or

object that is considered relevant to the interaction

between a user and an application, including the

user and the application themselves.”

Context-aware is a concept where the

applications can discover and take advantage of

contextual information such as user location, time of

day, nearby people, devices, and user activity.

An example of context-aware applications is the

scenario in which a consumer makes use of the

mobile technologies in retail grocery supply chain

through mobile shopping of electronically

referenced grocery products. This kind of

application is also beneficial to retailers, who by

knowing the exact location of the consumer can

allocate the workforce more accordingly and

efficiently, and can avoid out-of-stocks (Hakkila and

Mantyiarvi 2005) (Koolwaaij and Strating 2003).

1.3 Device Independence

In today’s world of rapidly changing technologies

and the rise in the use of mobile devices has created

a need for content adaptation. According to one of

the authors (Mikhalenki 2004), the goal of device

independence is to develop ways for future web

content and applications to be authored, generated,

or adapted for a better user experience when

delivered via many device types.

Currently many companies typically design web

applications for desktop browsers. And adaptation

of this kind of web site for small display is

effectively impossible and the companies creating a

parallel site for these devices is also impractical. To

solve this problem, the device-independent approach

is used to support different devices without the high

cost.

Device Independence technologies can be

divided into three different categories namely: -

intermediate, client-side and server-side (Butler,

Giannetti et al. 2002).

Intermediate approach can offer limited

adaptation to the content delivery. This approach

gives data-enabled phones access to web sites either

omitting server’s full resolution colour images or

changing it to the low resolution depending on the

device display capabilities (Hwang, Kim et al. 2003)

(Butler, Giannetti et al. 2002).

In the client-side approach the content adaptation

can occur on the device itself. The advantage for this

approach is that the adaptation code has direct

access to the device capabilities (Butler, Giannetti et

al. 2002).

Server-side content adaptation approach offers

maximum control over the delivered content

including the ability to change content, navigation

and style. In this approach the server is assumed to

have sufficient information about the delivery

context, including the delivery device capabilities.

Using device independence approach the content

integrators do not need to develop content for every

single device, where the content can be delivered to

different devices without accumulating more

resources and effort.

In the next sub-section we will discuss different

deployment methodologies and we will discuss our

approach in mobile business process deployment.

1.4 Deployment

In terms of technology, the word “deployment”

means “Installing, setting up, testing, and execution”

(Ali, Torabi et al. 2006). Therefore, deployment can

be interpreted as a general process that must be

customized according to specific requirements or

characteristics.

Deployment of software, applications or a

process is a complex task which covers all the

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activities from the end of the development itself to

installation and maintenance of the application on

the consumer devices. In (Richman 2001) the

authors have compared different types of

deployment techniques in terms of their scale,

complexity, expressiveness, and barriers to first use.

The deployment solutions being handled by these

implementation techniques: manual, script,

language, and model-based deployment.

The automation of application or service

deployment improves correctness, speed and

documentation but, as different companies have

experienced, it comes at an increased cost in

development time and a steeper administrators’

learning curve.

According to recent research, business processes

are deployed through XML web services. Web

services can be considered as the emerging

distributed middleware technology that uses a

simple XML-based protocol to allow applications to

exchange data across the web (Zhang, Zhang et al.

2004; Hammadi, Ali et al. 2006). At the core of the

Web Service is the Simple Object Access Protocol

(SOAP) an XML-based communication protocol for

interacting with Web Services. The SOAP

specification includes syntax to define messages,

encode or serialize rules for data exchange and

conventions for representing RPCs (Austaller,

Kangsharju et al. 2004) .

WSDL is used for describing the services

available. It describes where the service is located,

what operations are supported and the format of the

messages to be exchanged based on how the service

is invoked (Gokhale, Kumar et al. 2002; Austaller,

Kangsharju et al. 2004). On the other hand Business

Process Execution Language (BPEL) is the language

that is used to implement business processes in Web

Services. It defines a notation for specifying

business process behavior based on Web Services

(IBM, Systems et al. 2002).

Certain technologies and models have been

presented in recent years for the deployment of

services and applications using mobile technology.

One of the technologies being used recently by the

companies for the deployment of services is over-

the-air (OTA) deployment. OTA is becoming

increasingly important to support. OTA delivery

enables easy deployment and upgrades to the

applications, thereby reducing the disrupting effect

which installation of new applications and upgrades

may have on mobile users (Taconet, Putrycz et al.

2003) (Fjellheim 2006).

Another kind of deployment technique is “static

deployment” where the user connects to the site of

the application server through its mobile and then

subscribes to a download operation. Then the user

receives an SMS containing instructions for

downloading and installing the application.

The framework known as Smart Deployment

Infrastructure (SDI) is designed to facilitate the

installation of large distributed applications for any

kind of user terminal. This framework is also

presented for the context-aware deployment of

applications to the mobile users (Taconet, Putrycz et

al. 2003). The framework is implemented with

middleware technologies like CORBA and SOAP

which facilitates the development of large scale

distributed applications. SDI offers automatic

deployment of multi-component applications and

provides a deployment solution to customize

installation and to adapt to device capabilities

(Courtney 2000; Taconet, Putrycz et al. 2003).

In the next section we will present a framework for

mobile business process deployment. The

framework caters for deployment of a process in a

device independence and context-aware

environment.

2 THE FRAMEWORK

In this section we present a novel framework for

business process deployment in a mobile

environment taking into account the context of the

user and specification of the device to be used. The

overview of the architecture is shown in

Figure 1.

The framework proposed consists of five

different components:

• Deployment component

• Process specification component

• Device Specification component

• Context-Aware component

• Mobile Interface component

The “deployment component” is the main

component of the framework. This framework

consists of two layers namely Composition Layer

and Deployment Layer. The work for the

composition layer is to compose a selected Business

Process, setting the context of the deployment and

customizing the process according to the device

being used in the “Mobile Environment”. Where the

deployment layer activates the customized business

process to the Mobile Environment.

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Figure 1: Device Independence & Context-aware mobile

process deployment framework.

The second component in this framework is

“process specification component”. This is a

traditional Business Process component consisting

of activities, resources and user interfaces. User

Interfaces are stored as XML documents in the UI

Database associated with process specification

component.

“Device Specification component” is a typical

component. It consists of different hardware

configurations, screen resolution settings and other

features for the mobile devices being currently used

in the Mobile Environment.

“Context-Aware component” consists of many

parameters but in our Context-Aware component,

we only consider two parameters “Location and

Environment”. The location of the Mobile User is

determined using different technologies like GPS,

GSM, or MPS as shown in location server defined in

our architecture. The “Location Database” is used to

store all the locations of the users and later can be

used in process deployment.

“Mobile Interface component” consists of the

N number of users using N number of mobile

devices. The Mobile devices being used can be

pocket pc’s, smart phone’s or PDA’s etc.

In the rest of this section we will present the

Framework Design and the System Architecture.

The three-tier system architecture best shows the

interaction between the components and

communication between the three tiers.

2.1 The Framework Design

This section will focus on the Object-Oriented

Design for the proposed Mobile Business Process

Deployment Framework.

We will start our design with the "High Level

Component Diagram" as presented in Figure 2.

Our Object Oriented design is generic, flexible,

scalable, reusable, and it provides the flexibility to

coordinate, coordinate, and synchronize between

components and process automation.

This component diagram shows the system

functionality through a high level of abstraction. For

our design there are nine active components.

In this section we will be present a brief

description of each of the components. We will

briefly discuss the functionalities and properties that

each of the components possesses then in the next

section we will discuss each component in detail

with the help of a class diagram. The brief

explanation of each of the components is as follows:

Mapping Engine: - This component is to take

care of mapping between different protocols. All the

functionalities like displaying simple map, Geo-

coding, Reverse Geo-coding and routing would be

done by this component.

Process Specification: - This is a traditional

Business Process component consisting of activities,

resources and related user interfaces. All the

specifications would take place in this component.

The specification for the Business Process along

with its activities, resources and user interfaces are

stored in process database.

Figure 2: High level component diagram.

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Device Specification: - It consists of different

hardware configurations, screen resolution settings

and other features for the mobile devices being

currently used in the Mobile Environment. In the

framework these would be stored as an XML

documents and would be used at the time of

deployment. Device database is used to store all the

device specification for different mobile devices.

Context-Aware: - Consists of many parameters

including "Location and Environment" parameters.

In this component we show how the location and

environment parameter can be determined using

different positioning and sensor technologies.

Context database is using to store the context

information of the user in the mobile environment.

Deployment: - This is the major component of

the framework. This component is where the actual

deployment would take place. All the components

would be integrated and coordinated before

deploying to the mobile environment. All the

Protocols and Web Services technologies would also

reside in this component.

XML Parsing Component: - All the XML

parsing of the incoming responses, XML documents

stored for Process Specification, Context and Device

Specification is carried out by this component.

2.1.1 Mapping Engine

The purpose of the mapping engine is to provide the

framework with the maps if required during

deployment. The maps are really important if one

wants to show the user its location that in our case

one of the parameters of the context information.

The class diagram for the component is shown in

Figure 3.

Figure 3: Mapping Engine.

Mapping Engine is adopted from a Location

Based Services Company, iGoPlus, this exercise. As

can be seen from the class diagram above, there is a

SDK Interface that links the application with the

mapping engine

Through this engine our framework would be

able to do the following functionalities:

• Display simple map with centerOnAddress or

CenterOnPositon. Where the map would be

centered either by latitude longitude position or

by address.

• Show Geocoded address on the Map.

• Do Reverse Geocoding and show the position

of the points on the map.

• Display the route between two points on the

map. This also includes displaying the Text

Instructions required in navigating from start to

end position.

• Do the map customization in terms of

orientation, color, mapView and size.

2.1.2 Process Specification

This component takes care of the Business Process

Specification along with its activities and resources.

A Business Process can have many activities and

each can have different resources.

User interfaces are attached to each subsequent

activity. Not every activity may have a user

interface. User interfaces are associated to activities

during business process specification. The class

diagram for Process Specification is shown in

Figure 4.

Figure 4: Process specification.

A Business Process may have number of

activities and each activity has some resources at its

disposal. Among others other characteristics of

resources includes whether or not they are

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213

consumable or sharable resources. User interface

specification is an important part of this component.

In our framework we are assuming that user

interfaces would not be specified but only

referenced. Its attributes include id and path where

user interfaces are stored. It should be noted that not

all activities would have user interfaces attached to

it.

The Process Specification is stored in the

database. It can be seen from the diagram that there

is one main super class "Database Management"

which has all the subclasses from it, which are used

in the system. The class "Database Management"

contains all the attributes and the operations

common to all the classes.

2.1.3 Device Specification

Having discussed the design for Mapping Engine

and Process Specification, in this section we will

present the design for Device Specification. Device

Specification is stored as an XML document in the

database. Device Specification consists of software

and hardware specification. Other components

interact with this component through Device

Interface. The design of the device specification of

the framework is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Device specification.

As can be seen from the diagram, the framework

interacts with the device specification component

through an interface. One device would have one

specification and the specification would have

attributes such as screen resolution, screen size,

software specification, hardware specification and

colour capability.

2.1.4 Context-Aware

In this section we present the design for context-

aware component. There are many parameters as

part of context-aware information, including the

location and environment. The contextual

information for this component would be stored as

XML documents in the database.

The design for this component is based on the

working of commercial applications like on-board

navigation systems, gadgets or sensors for light or

noise. The context parameters, location and

environment will be determined as shown in Figure

Figure 6: Context-aware component.

The framework will be determining location

through two positioning technologies that are MPS

and GPS. The position from these two technologies

is in the form of Latitude and Longitude. Whereas

Environment parameters is determined through

sensor interfaces as shown in Figure 6.

2.1.5 Deployment

Having specified Business Process, activities and

resources, the deployment component brings context

information and customized user interfaces together

before deploying it to mobile environment. The

composition layer coordinates and integrates all

three components and the mapping engine

component before the protocol layer can deploy it.

The design for the deployment component is shown

in Figure 7.

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Figure 7: Deployment component.

This component is the backbone for the

deployment process. The Composition layer

coordinates and integrates all the three components

together towards the deployment process. Examples

of functions being performed by this layer are as

follows:

• getLocation():- Gets the location of the

particular user from the Context-Aware

Component. The response returned would be in

terms of latitude and longitude.

• getDeviceSpecification():-Gets the Device

Specification for a particular device from the

Device Specification Component.

• setDeviceSpecification():- Sets the Device

Specification for a particular mobile device in

the Device Specification Component.

A Business Process can be deployed either by

HTTP connection or by SOAP commands. The

Framework caters for both of these protocols.

2.2 System Architecture

The system architecture for the Mobile Business

Process Deployment Framework is divided into

three main parts client layer, business logic and

database layer. The System Architecture is shown in

Figure

The client layer or tier interfaces between the

system and the user. It consists of a mobile device

running on operating system windows CE 5.0. The

Business Process is deployed to a mobile device in

form of XML document. The communication

between client tier and business logic tier is done

through XML web services hosted on ASP. Net

Web Server.

Apache Cocoon Server is used in the framework

to determine the software capabilities of a mobile

device from the responses received from the client

tier. ASP .Net local Web Server is used to support

XML Web Services and Simple Object Access

Protocol (SOAP). These technologies set up the

communication between the server and the client.

Contextual Information and specifications for

mobile devices are also stored as XML documents

in the Mysql Database.

Figure 8: Three tier architecture.

Deployment Engine Component consists of two

layers Composition Layer and Protocol Layer. The

responsibility for the composition layer is to

compose a selected Business Process, setting the

context of the deployment and customizing the

business process according to the device being used.

The protocol layer would set protocols for the

deployment like setting up parameter for SOAP

commands and setting up HTTP connections.

The database layer consists of database and

Mapping Engine. For communication between

Business Logic Tier and Mysql, there is MyODBC

Interface that takes the request from the server and

sends it to database.

3 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we have discussed deployment of a

business process to a mobile device in a chosen

context and in a device independence environment.

A Business Process can be deployed to any mobile

device in any location or environment the user may

be. This framework helps companies and developers

to deploy same business processes to different

mobile devices without any software or user

interface configuration. Much research has been

done in the field of context-aware and device

A MOBILE BUSINESS PROCESS DEPLOYMENT FRAMEWORK FOR DEVICE INDEPENDENCE AND

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215

independence, our contribution to this research is to

bring these aspects together and design a framework

that can bring more flexibility to the provider and

the consumer.

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