Category: Business Process Modeling

EA: Entropy Antidote

Cybernetics & Governance

When seen through cybernetics glasses, enterprises are social entities whose sustainability and capabilities hang on their ability to track changes in their environment and exploit opportunities before their competitors. As a corollary, corporate governance is to be contingent on fast, accurate and purpose-driven reading of  environments on one hand, effective use of assets on the other hand.

menloop_moholy-nagy
Entropy grows from confusion (Lazlo Moholo-Nagy)

And that will depend on enterprises’ capacity to capture data, process it into information, and translate information into knowledge supporting decision-making. Since that capacity is itself determined by architectures, a changing and competitive environment will require continuous adaptation of enterprises’ organization. That’s when disorder and confusion may increase: lest a robust and flexible organization can absorb and consolidate changes, variety will progressively clog the systems with specific information associated with local adjustments.

Governance & Information

Whatever its type, effective corporate governance depends on timely and accurate information about the actual state of assets and environments. Hence the need to assess such capabilities independently of the type of governance structure that has to be supported, and of any specific business context.

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Effective governance is contingent on the distance between actual state of assets and environment on one hand, relevant information on the other hand.

That put the focus on the processing of information flows supporting the governance of interactions between enterprises and their environment:

  • How to identify the relevant facts and monitor them as accurately and timely as required.
  • How to process external data from environment into information, and to consolidate the outcome with information related to enterprise objectives and internal states.
  • How to put the consolidated information to use as knowledge supporting decision-making.
  • How to monitor processes execution and deal with relevant feedback data.
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What is behind enterprise ability to track changes in environment and exploit opportunities.

Enterprises being complex social constructs, those tasks can only be carried on through structured organization and communication mechanisms  supporting the processing of information flows.

Architectures & Changes

Assuming that enterprise governance relies on accurate and timely information with regard to internal states and external environments, the first step would be to distinguish between the descriptions of actual contexts on one hand, of symbolic representation on the other hand.

Models are used to describe actual or symbolic objects and behaviors
Enterprise architectures can be described along two dimensions: nature (actual or symbolic), and target (objects or activities).

Even for that simplified architecture, assessing variety and information processing capabilities in absolute terms would clearly be a challenge. But assessing variations should be both easier and more directly useful.

Change being by nature relative to time, the first thing is to classified changes with regard to time-frames:

  • Operational changes are occurring, and can be dealt with, within the time-frame of processes execution.
  • Structural changes affect contexts and assets and cannot be dealt with at process level as they.

On that basis the next step will be to examine the tie-ups between actual changes and symbolic representations:

  • From actual to symbolic: how changes in environments are taken into account; how processes execution and state of assets are monitored.
  • From symbolic to actual: how changes in business models and processes design are implemented.
What moves first: actual contexts and processes or enterprise abstractions
What moves first: actual contexts and processes or enterprise abstractions

The effects of  those changes on overall governance capability will depend on their source (internal or external) and modality (planned or not).

Changes & Information Processing

As far as enterprise governance is considered, changes can be classified with regard to their source and modality.

With regard to source:

  • Changes within the enterprise are directly meaningful (data>information), purpose-driven (information>knowledge), and supposedly manageable.
  • Changes in environment are not under control, they may need interpretation (data<?>information), and their consequences or use are to be explored (information<?>knowledge).

With regard to modality:

  • Data associated with planned changes are directly meaningful (data>information) whatever their source (internal or external); internal changes can also be directly associated with purpose (information>knowledge);
  • Data associated with unplanned internal changes can be directly interpreted (data>information) but their consequences have to be analyzed (information<?>knowledge); data associated with unplanned external changes must be interpreted (data<?>information).
Changes can be classified with regard to their source (enterprise or environment) and modality (planned or not).
Changes can be classified with regard to their source (enterprise or environment) and modality (planned or not).

Assuming with Stafford Beer that viable systems must continuously adapt their capabilities to their environment, this taxonomy has direct consequences for their governance:

  • Changes occurring within planned configurations are meant to be dealt with, directly (when stemming from within enterprise), or through enterprise adjustments (when set in its environment).
  • That assumption cannot be made for changes occurring outside planned configurations because the associated data will have to be interpreted and consequences identified prior to any decision.

Enterprise governance will therefore depend on the way those changes are taken into account, and in particular on the capability of enterprise architectures to process the flows of associated data into information, and to use it to deal with variety.

EA & Models

Originally defined by thermodynamic as a measure of heat dissipation, the concept of entropy has been taken over by cybernetics as a measure of  the (supposedly negative) variation in the value of information supporting corporate governance.

As noted above, the key challenge is to manage the relevancy and timely interpretation and use of the data, in particular when new data cannot be mapped into predefined  semantic frame, as may happen with unplanned changes in contexts. How that can be achieved will depend on the processing of data and its consolidation into information as carried on at enterprise level or by business and technical units.

Given that data is captured at the periphery of systems, one may assume that the monitoring of operations performed by business and technical units are not to be significantly affected by architectures. The same assumption can be made for market research meant to be carried on at enterprise level.

Architecture Layers and Information Processing
Architecture Layers and Information Processing

Within that working assumption, the focus is to be put on enterprise architecture capability to “read” environments (from data to information), as well as to “update” itself (putting information to use as knowledge).

With regard to “reading” capabilities the primary factor will be traceability:

  • At technical level traceability between components and applications is required if changes in business operations are to be mapped to IT architecture.
  • At organizational level, the critical factor for governance will be the ability to adapt the functionalities of supporting systems to changes in business processes. And that will be significantly enhanced if both can be mapped to shared functional concepts.

Once the “readings” of external changes are properly interpreted with regard to internal assets and objectives, enterprise governance will have to decide if changes can be dealt with by the current architecture or if it has to be modified. Assuming that change management is an intrinsic part of enterprise governance, “updating” capabilities will rely on a continuous, comprehensive and consistent management of information, best achieved through models, as epitomized by the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) framework.

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Models as bridges between data and knowledge

Based on requirements capture and analysis, respective business, functional, and technical information is consolidated into models:

  • At technical level platform specific models (PSMs) provide for applications and components traceability. They support maintenance and configuration management and can be combined with design patterns to build modular software architecture from reusable components.
  • At organizational level, platform independent models (PIMs) are used to align business processes with systems functionalities. Combined with functional patterns the objective is to use service oriented architectures as a level of indirection between organization and information technology.
  • At enterprise level, computation independent models (CIMs) are meant to bring together corporate tangible and intangible assets. That’s where corporate culture will drive architectural changes  from systems legacy, environment challenges, and planned designs.

EA & Entropy

Faced with continuous changes in their business environment and competition, enterprises have to navigate between rocks of rigidity and whirlpools of variety, the former policies trying to carry on with existing architectures, the latter adding as many variants as seems to appear to business objects, processes, or channels. Meeting environments challenges while warding off growing complexity will depend on the plasticity and versatility of architectures, more precisely on their ability to “digest” the variety of data and transform it into corporate knowledge. Along that perspective enterprise architecture can be seen as a natural antidote to entropy, like a corporate cousin of  Maxwell’s demon, standing at enterprise gates and allowing changes in a way that would decrease internal complexity relative to the external one.

Further Readings

External Links

EA Documentation: Taking Words for Systems

In so many words

Given the clear-cut and unambiguous nature of software, how to explain the plethora of  “standard” definitions pertaining to systems, not to mention enterprises, architectures ?

Documents and architectures, which grows on the other (Gilles Barbier).
Documents and Systems: which ones nurture the others (Gilles Barbier).

Tentative answers can be found with reference to the core functions documents are meant to support: instrument of governance, medium of exchange, and content storage.

Instrument of Governance: the letter of the law

The primary role of documents is to support the continuity of corporate identity and activities with regard to their regulatory and business environments. Along that perspective documents are to receive legal tender for the definitions of parties (collective or individuals), roles, and contracts. Such documents are meant to support the letter of the law, whether set at government, industry, or corporate level. When set at corporate level that letter may be used to assess the capability and maturity of architectures, organizations, and processes. Whatever the level, and given their role for legal tender or assessment, those documents have to rely on formal textual definitions, possibly supplemented with models.

Medium of Exchange: the spirit of the law

Independently of their formal role, documents are used as medium of exchange, across corporate entities as well as internally between their organizational units. When freed from legal or governance duties, such documents don’t have to carry authorized or frozen interpretations and assorted meanings can be discussed and consolidated in line with the spirit of the law. That makes room for model-based documents standing on their own, with textual definitions possibly set in the background. Given the importance of direct discussions in the interpretation of their contents, documents used as medium of (immediate) exchange should not be confused with those used as means of storage (exchange along time).

Means of Storage: letter only

Whatever their customary functions, documents can be used to store contents to be reinstated at a later stage. In that case, and contrary to direct (aka immediate) exchange, interpretations cannot be consolidated through discussion but have to stand on the letter of the documents themselves. When set by regulatory or organizational processes, canonical interpretations can be retrieved from primary contexts, concerns, or pragmatics. But things can be more problematic when storage is performed for its own purpose, without formal reference context. That can be illustrated by legacy applications with binary code can be accompanied by self-documented source code, source with documentation, source with requirements, generated source with models, etc.

Documentation and Enterprise Architecture

Assuming that the governance of structured social organizations must be supported by comprehensive documentation, documents must be seen as a necessary and intrinsic component of enterprise architectures and their design should be aligned on concerns and capabilities.

As noted above, each of the basic functionalities comes with specific constraints; as a consequence a sound documentation policy should not mix functionalities. On that basis, documents should be defined by mapping purposes with users across enterprise architecture layers:

  • With regard to corporate environment, documentation requirements are set by legal constraints, directly (regulations and contracts) or indirectly (customary framework for transactions, traceability and audit).
  • With regard to organization, documents have to met two different objectives. As a medium of exchange they are meant to support the collaboration between organizational units, both at business level (processes) and across architecture levels. As an instrument of governance they are used to assess architecture capabilities and processes performances. Documents supporting those objectives are best kept separate if negative side effects are to be avoided.
  • With regard to systems functionalities, documents can be introduced for procurements (governance), development (exchange), and change (storage).
  • Within systems, the objective is to support operational deployment and maintenance of software components.
Documents’ purposes and users
Documents’ purposes and users

The next step will be to integrate documents pertaining to actual environments and organization (brown background) with those targeting symbolic artifacts (blue background).

EmergA_ActSmb
Models are used to describe actual or symbolic objects and behaviors

That could be achieved with MBE/MDA approaches.

Further readings

 

MDA & EA: Is The Tail Wagging The Dog ?

Making Heads or Tails

OMG’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is a systems engineering framework set along three model layers:

  • Computation Independent Models (CIMs) describe business objects and activities independently of supporting systems.
  • Platform Independent Models (PIMs) describe systems functionalities independently of platforms technologies.
  • Platform Specific Models (PSMs) describe systems components as implemented by specific technologies.

Since those layers can be mapped respectively to enterprise, functional, and technical architectures, the question is how to make heads or tails of the driving: should architectures be set along model layers or should models organized according architecture levels.

(judy Kensley McKie)
A Dog Making Head or Tail (Judy Kensley McKie)

In other words, has some typo reversed the original “architecture driven modeling” (ADM) into “model driven architecture” (MDA) ?

Wrong Spelling, Right Concepts

A confusing spelling should not mask the soundness and relevance of the approach: MDA model layers effectively correspond to a clear hierarchy of problems and solutions:

  • Computation Independent Models describe how business processes support enterprise objectives.
  • Platform Independent Models describe how systems functionalities support business processes.
  • Platform Specific Models describe how platforms implement systems functionalities.
MDA layers correspond to a clear hierarchy of problems and solutions
MDA layers correspond to a clear hierarchy of problems and solutions

That should leave no room for ambiguity: regardless of the misleading “MDA” moniker,  the modeling of systems is meant to be driven by enterprise concerns and therefore to follow architecture divides.

Architectures & Assets Reuse

As it happens, the “MDA” term is doubly confusing as it also blurs the distinction between architectures and processes. And that’s unfortunate because the reuse of architectural assets by development processes is at the core of the MDA framework:

  • Business objects and logic (CIM) are defined independently of the functional architectures (PIM) supporting them.
  • Functional architectures (PIM) are defined independently of implementation platforms (PSM).
  • Technical architecture (PSM) are defined independently of deployment configurations.
MDA layers clearly coincide with reusable assets
MDA layers coincide with categories of reusable assets

Under that perspective the benefits of the “architecture driven” understanding (as opposed to the “model driven” one) appear clearly for both aspects of enterprise governance:

  • Systems governance can be explicitly and transparently aligned on enterprise organization and business objectives.
  • Business and development processes can be defined, assessed, and optimized with regard to the reuse of architectural assets.

With the relationship between architectures and processes straightened out and architecture reinstated as the primary factor, it’s possible to reexamine the contents of models used as hinges between them.

Languages & Model Purposes

While engineering is not driven by models but by architectures, models do describe architectures. And since models are built with languages, one should expect different options depending on the nature of artifacts being described. Broadly speaking, three basic options can be considered:

  • Versatile and general modeling languages like UML can be tailored to different contexts and purposes, along development cycle (requirements, analysis, design) as well as across perspectives (objects, activities, etc) and domains (banking, avionics, etc)
  • Non specific business modeling languages like BPM and rules-based languages are meant to be introduced upfront, even if their outcome can be used further down the development cycle.
  • Domain specific languages, possibly built with UML, are also meant to be introduced early as to capture domains complexity. Yet, and contrary to languages like BPM, their purpose is to provide an integrated solution covering the whole development cycle.
Languages: general purpose (blue), process or domain specific (green), or design.
Languages: general purpose (blue), process or domain specific (green), or design (brown).

As seen above for reuse and enterprise architecture, a revised MDA perspective clarifies the purpose of models and consequently the language options. With developments “driven by models”, code generation is the default option and nothing much is said about what should be shared and reused, and why. But with model contents aligned on architecture levels, purposes become explicit and modeling languages have to be selected accordingly, e.g:

  • Domain specific languages for integrated developments (PSM-centered).
  • BPM for business specifications to be implemented by software packages (CIM-centered).
  • UML for projects set across system functional architecture (PIM-centered).

The revised perspective and reasoned association between languages and architectures can then be used to choose development processes: projects that can be neatly fitted into single boxes can be carried out along a continuous course of action,  others will require phased development models.

Enterprise Architecture & Engineering Processes

Systems engineering has to meet different kinds of requirements: business goals, system functionalities, quality of service, and platform implementations. In a perfect (model driven engineering) world there would be one stakeholder, one architecture, and one time-frame. Unfortunately, requirements are usually set by different stakeholders, governed by different rationales, and subject to changes along different time-frames. Hence the importance of setting forth the primary factors governing engineering processes:

  • Planning: architecture levels (business, systems, platforms) are governed by different time-frames and engineering projects must be orchestrated accordingly.
  • Communication: collaboration across organizational units require traceability and transparency.
  • Governance: decisions across architecture levels and business units cannot be made upfront and options and policies must be assessed continuously.

Those objectives are best supported when engineering processes are set along architecture levels:

Enterprise Architecture & Processes
Enterprise Architecture & Processes
  1. Requirements: at enterprise level requirements deal with organization and business processes (CIMs). The enterprise requirements process starts with portfolio management, is carried on with systems functionalities, and completed with platforms operational requirements.
  2. Problems Analysis: at enterprise level analysis deals with symbolic representations of enterprise environment, objectives, and activities (PIMs). The enterprise analysis process starts with the consolidation of symbolic representations for objects (power-types) and activities (scenarii), is carried on with functional architectures, and completed with platforms non-functional features. Contrary to requirements, which are meant to convey changes and bear adaptation (dashed lines), the aim of analysis at enterprise level is to consolidate symbolic representations and guarantee their consistency and continuity. As a corollary, analysis at system level must be aligned with its enterprise counterpart before functional (continuous lines) requirements are taken into account.
  3. Solutions Design: at enterprise level design deals with operational concerns and resources deployment. The enterprise design process starts with locations and resources, is carried on with systems configurations, and completed with platforms deployments. Part of it is to be supported by systems as designed (PSMs) and implemented as platforms. Yet, as figured by dashed arrows, operational solutions designed at enterprise level bear upon the design of systems architectures and the configuration of their implementation as platforms.

When engineering is driven by architectures, processes can be devised depending on enterprise concerns and engineering contexts. While that could come with various terminologies, the partitioning principles will remain unchanged, e.g:

  • Agile processes will combine requirements with development and bypass analysis phases (a).
  • Projects meant to be implemented by Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Software (COTS) will start with business requirements, possibly using BPM, then carry on directly to platform implementation, bypassing system analysis and design phases (b).
  • Changes in enterprise architecture capabilities will be rooted in analysis of enterprise objectives, possibly but not necessarily with inputs from business and operational requirements, continue with analysis and design of systems functionalities, and implement the corresponding resources at platform level (c).
  • Projects dealing with operational concerns will be conducted directly through systems design of and platform implementation (d).
Processes should be devised according enterprise concerns and engineering contexts
Examples of process templates depending on objectives and contexts.

To conclude, when architecture is reinstated as the primary factor, the MDA paradigm becomes a pivotal component of enterprise architecture as it provides a clear understanding of architecture divides and dependencies on one hand, and their relationship with engineering processes on the second hand.

Postscript

MDA illustrates a contrario the straying agenda of the OMG: despite its soundness as a foundation of enterprise architecture as well as its complementarity with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), MDA three-tiers framework has been left unattended, to be replaced by an open-ended (more than two hundred, and counting) hotpotch of amorphous and overlapping meta-models.

Nonetheless, the paradigm is not to be forsaken and can be found behind the Zachman framework and its revamping by Caminao.

https://caminao.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/symbotransfo_pagoda.jpg?w=600

MDA reincarnation as the Pagoda Blueprint

Further Reading

External Links

From Processes to Services

Objective

Even in the thick of perplexing debates, enterprise architects often agree on the meaning of processes and services, the former set from a business perspective, the latter from a system one. Considering the rarity of such a consensus, it could be used to rally the different approaches around a common understanding of some of EA’s objectives.

BOB1951003W00007/ICP912
Process with service (Robert Capa)

A Governing Dilemma

Systems have long been of three different species that communicated but didn’t interbred: information ones were calmly processing business records, industrial ones were tensely controlling physical devices, and embedded ones lived their whole life stowed away within devices. Lastly, and contrary to the natural law of evolution, those three species have started to merge into a versatile and powerful new breed keen to colonize the whole of enterprise ecosystem.

When faced with those pervading systems, enterprises usually waver between two policies, containment or integration, the former struggling to weld and confine all systems within technology boundaries, the latter trying to fragment them and share out the pieces between whichever business units ready to take charge.

While each approach may provide acceptable compromises in some contexts, both suffer critical flaws:

  • Centralized solutions constrict business opportunities and innovation by putting all concerns under a single unwieldy lid of technical constraints.
  • Federated solutions rely on integration mechanisms whose increasing size and complexity put the whole of systems integrity and adaptability on the line.

Service oriented architectures may provide a way out of this dilemma by introducing a functional bridge between enterprise governance  and systems architectures.

Separation of Concerns

Since governance is meant to be driven by concerns, one should first consider the respective rationales behind business processes and system functionalities, the former driven by contexts and opportunities, and the latter by functional requirements and platforms implementation.

While business processes usually involve various degrees of collaboration between enterprises, their primary objective is to fulfill each one’s very specific agenda, namely to beat the others and be the first to take advantage of market opportunities. That put systems at the cross of a dual perspective: from a business point of view they are designed to provide a competitive edge, but from an engineering standpoint they aim at standards and open infrastructures. Clearly, there is no reason to assume that those perspectives should coincide, one  being driven by changes in competitive environments, the other by continuity and interoperability of systems platforms. That’s where Service Oriented Architectures should help: by introducing a level of indirection between business processes and system functionalities, services naturally allow for the mapping of requirements with architecture capabilities.

bp2sa_layers
Services provide a level of indirection between business and system concerns.

Along that reasoning (and the corresponding requirements taxonomy), the design of services would be assessed in terms of optimization under constraints: given enterprise organization and objectives (business requirements), the problem is to maximize the business value of supporting systems (functional requirements) within the limits set by implementation platforms (non functional requirements).

Services & Capabilities

Architectures and processes are orthogonal descriptions respectively for enterprise assets and activities. Looking for the footprint of supporting systems, the first step is to consider how business processes should refer to architecture capabilities :

  • From a business perspective, i.e disregarding supporting systems and platforms, processes can be defined in terms of symbolic objects, business logic, and the roles of agents, devices, and systems.
  • The functional perspective looks at the role of supporting systems; as such, it is governed by business objectives and subject to technical constraints.
  • From a technical perspective, i.e disregarding the symbolic contents of interactions between systems and contexts, operational processes are characterized by the nature of interfaces (human, devices, or other systems), locations (centralized or distributed), and synchronization constraints.

Service oriented architectures typify the functional perspective by factoring out the symbolic contents of system functionalities, introducing services as symbolic hinges between enterprise and system architectures. And when defined in terms of customers, messages, contract, policy, and endpoints, services can be directly mapped to architectures capabilities.

Services are a perfect match for capabilities

Moreover, with services defined in terms of architecture capabilities, the divide between business and operational requirements can be drawn explicitly:

  • Actual (external) entities and their symbolic counterpart: services only deal with symbolic objects (messages).
  • Actual entities and their roles: services know nothing about physical agents, only about symbolic customers.
  • Business logic and processes execution: contracts deal with the processing of symbolic flows, policies deal with operational concerns.
  • External events and system time: service transactions are ACID, i.e from customer standpoint, they appear to be timeless.

Those distinctions are used to factor out the common backbone of enterprise and system architectures, and as such they play a pivotal role in their alignment.

Anchoring Business Requirements to Supporting Systems

Business processes are meant to met enterprise objectives given contexts and resources. But if the alignment of enterprise and system architectures is to be shielded from changes in business opportunities and platforms implementation, system functionalities will have to support a wide range of shifting business goals while securing the continuity and consistency of shared resources and communication mechanisms. In order to conciliate business changes with system continuity, business processes must be anchored to objects and activities whose identity and semantics are set at enterprise level independently of the part played by supporting systems:

  • Persistent units (aka business objects): structured information uniquely associated to identified individuals in business context. Life cycle and integrity of symbolic representations must be managed independently of business processes execution.
  • Functional and execution units: structured activity triggered by an event identified in business context, and whose execution is bound to a set of business objects. State of symbolic representations must be managed in isolation for the duration of process execution.
Services can be defined according persistency and functional units (#)

The coupling between business units (persistent or transient) identified at business level and their system counterpart can be secured through services defined with regard to business processes (customers), business objects (messages), business logic (contract), and business operations (policy).

It must be noted that while services specifications for customers, messages, contracts, and policy are identified at business level and completed at functional level, that’s not the case for endpoints since services locations are set at architecture level independently of business requirements.

Filling out Functional Requirements

Functional requirements are set in two dimensions, symbolic and operational; the former deals with the contents exchanged between business processes and supporting systems with regard to objects, activities and events, or actors; the latter deals with the actual circumstances of the exchanges: locations, interfaces, execution constraints, etc.

Given that services are by nature shared and symbolic, they can only be defined between systems. As a corollary, when functionalities are slated as services, a clear distinction should be maintained between the symbolic contents exchanged between business processes and supporting systems, and the operational circumstances of actual interactions with actors.

Interactions: symbolic and local (a), non symbolic and local (b), symbolic and shared (c).
Interactions: symbolic and local (a), non symbolic and local (b), symbolic and shared (c).

Depending on the preferred approach for requirements capture, symbolic contents can be specified at system boundaries (e.g use cases), or at business level (e.g users’ stories). Regardless, both approaches can be used to flesh out the symbolic descriptions of functional and persistency units.

From a business process standpoint, users (actors in UML parlance) should not be seen as agents but as the roles agents play in enterprise organization, possibly with constraints regarding the quality of service at entry points. That distinction between agents and roles is critical if functional architectures are to dissociate changes in business processes on one hand, platform implementation on the other hand.

Along that understanding actors triggering use cases (aka primary actors) can represent the performance of human agents as well as devices or systems. Yet, as far as symbolic flows are concerned, only human agents and systems are relevant (devices have no symbolic capabilities of their own). On the receiving end of use cases (aka secondary actors), only systems are to be considered for supporting services.

Mapping Processes to Services (through Use Cases)

Hence, when requirements are expressed through use cases, and assuming they are to be realized (fully or partially) through services:

  • Persistency and functional units identified by business process would be mapped to messages and contracts.
  • Business processes would fit service policy.
  • Use case containers (aka systems) would be registered as service customers.

Alternatively, when requirements are set from users’ stories instead of use cases, persistency and functional units have to be elicited through stories, traced back to business processes, and consolidated into features. Those features will be mapped into system functionalities possibly, but not necessarily, implemented as services.

Mapping Processes to Services (through Users’ Stories)

Hence, while the mapping of business objects and logic respectively to messages and contracts will be similar with use cases and users’ stories, paths will differ for customers and policies:

  • Given that use cases deal explicitly with interactions at system boundaries, they represent a primary source of requirements for services’ customers and policy. Yet, as services are not supposed to be directly affected by interactions at systems boundaries, those elements would have to be consolidated across use cases.
  • Users’ stories for their part are told from a business process perspective that may take into account boundaries and actors but are not focused on them. Depending on the standpoint, it should be possible to define customers and policies requirements for services independently of the contingencies of local interactions.

In both cases, it would be necessary to factor out the non symbolic (aka non functional) part of requirements.

Non Functional Requirements: Quality of Service and System Boundaries

Non functional requirements are meant to set apart the constraints on systems’ resources and performances that could be dealt with independently of business contents. While some may target specific business applications, and others encompass a broader range, the aim is to separate business from architecture concerns and allocate the responsibilities (specification, development, and acceptance) accordingly.

Assuming an architecture of services aligned on capabilities, the first step would be to sort operational constraints:

  • Customers: constraints on usability, customization, response time, availability, …
  • Messages: constraints on scale, confidentiality, compliance with regulations, …
  • Contracts: constraints on scale, confidentiality, …
  • Policy: availability, reliability, maintenance, …
  • Endpoints: costs, maintenance, security, interoperability, …
BP2SOA_QoS
Non functional constraints may cut across services and capabilities

Since constraints may cut across services and capabilities, non functional requirements are not a given but the result of explicit decisions about:

  • Architecture level: should the constraint be dealt with locally (interfaces), at functional level (services), or at technical level (resources).
  • Services: when set at functional level, should the constraint be dealt with by business services (e.g domain or activity), or architecture ones (e.g authorization or orchestration).

The alignment of services with architecture capabilities will greatly enhance the traceability and rationality of those decisions.

A Simple Example

This example is based on the Purchase Order case published with the OMG specifications: http://www.omg.org/spec/SoaML/1.0/Beta2/PDF/

A simple purchase order process analyzed in terms of service customers, messages and entities (#), contracts, and policy (aka choreography)
A simple purchase order process analyzed in terms of service customers, messages and entities (#), contracts, and policy (aka choreography)

Further Reading

External References

Modeling Languages: Differences Matter

“Since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express a particular business they are to discourse on.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

Objective

Modeling languages are meant to support the description of contexts and concerns from specific standpoints. And because those different perspectives have to be mapped against shared references, language must also provide constructs for ironing out variants and factoring out constants.

Digging or Ironing out differences (Erwitt Elliott)
Ironing out differences in features and behaviors (Erwitt Elliott)

Yet, while most languages generally agree on basic definitions of objects and behaviors, many distinctions are ignored or subject to controversial understanding; such shortcomings might be critical when architecture capabilities are concerned:

  • Actual entities and their symbolic counterpart.
  • Actual entities and their roles.
  • Business logic and business operations
  • External events and system time.

Capabs_L1
Architecture Capabilities

As those distinctions set the backbone of functional architectures, languages should be assessed according their ability to express them unambiguously using the least possible set of constructs.

Business objects vs Symbolic Surrogates

As far as symbolic systems are concerned, the primary purpose of models is to distinguish between targets and representations. Hence the first assessment yardstick: modeling languages must support a clear and unambiguous distinction between objects and behaviors of concern on one hand, symbolic system surrogates on the other hand.

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A primer on representation: objects of concerns and surrogates

Yet, if objects and behaviors are to be consistently and continuously managed, modeling languages must also provide common constructs mapping identities and structures of actual entities to their symbolic counterpart.

Agents vs Roles

Given that systems are built to support business processes, modeling languages should enable a clear distinction between physical entities able to interact with systems on one hand, roles as defined by enterprise organization on the other hand.

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Agents and Roles

In that case the mapping of actual entities to systems representations is not about identities but functionalities: a level of indirection has to be introduced between enterprise organization and system technology because the same roles can be played,simultaneously or successively, by people, devices, or other systems.

Business logic vs Business operations

Just like actual objects are not to be confused with their symbolic description, modeling languages must make a clear distinction between business logic and processes execution, the former defining how to process symbolic objects and flows, the latter with the coupling between process execution and changes in actual contexts. That distinction is of a particular importance if business and organizational decisions are to be made independently of supporting systems technology.

Pull vs Push Rule Management
Business logic and operational contingencies

Language constructs must also support the consolidation of functional and operational units, the former being defined by integrity constraints on symbolic flows and roles authorizations on objects and operations, the latter taking into account synchronization constraints between the state of actual contexts and the state of their system symbolic counterpart. And for that purpose languages must support the distinction between external and internal events.

External vs Internal Events

Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, time is what happens between events. As a corollary, external time is what happens between context events, and internal time is what happens between system ones. While both can coincide for single systems and locations, no such assumption should be made for distributed systems set in different locations. In that case modeling language should support a clear distinction between external events signalling changes set in actual locations, and internal events signalling changes affecting system surrogates.

Time scales can be design on purpose
Time scales are set by events and concerns

Along that perspective synchronization is to be achieved through the consolidation of time scales. For single locations that can be done using system clocks, across distributed locations the consolidation will entail dedicated time frames and mechanisms set in reference to some initial external event.

Conclusion: How to share differences across perspectives

Somewhat paradoxically, multiple modeling languages erase differences by paring down shared descriptions to some uniform lump that can be understood by all. Conversely, agreeing on a set of distinctions that should be supported by every language could provide an antidote to the Babel syndrome.

That approach can be especially effective for the alignment of enterprise and systems architectures as the four distinctions listed above are equally meaningful in both perspectives.

Further reading