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In-Depth Information
Figure 8: Customized process model for the online store's customer support staff
the framework systematically, this section also presents the object data model to manage
a process model and the XML document structure to represent process status. Therefore,
the proposed federated process framework provides answers to the two questions of the
autonomy problem and consequently addresses the autonomy problem.
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
AND ITS PROTOTYPE SYSTEM
This section presents a system architecture based on the federated process framework
with its prototype system. The system architecture is composed of the following two types
of system components: a repository and an agent. Figure 9 shows the components and their
interactions. In terms of the repository, the system architecture contains process model
repositories and an XML document repository. Employing the object data model in Figure
3(a), the
process model repository
manages internal, integrated, and customized process
models on the information-receiving side, and it manages internal and external process
models on the information-providing side. The
XML document repository
resides only
on the information-receiving side and manages a set of XML documents that represents the
execution history of global process instances.
In terms of the agent, the system architecture contains publisher agents and a subscriber
agent. On both sides, the
publisher agent
detects the change of a local process status and
sends the XML document representing the changed local process status to the subscriber
agent that resides on the information-receiving side. The
subscriber agent
manages the XML
document repository and broadcasts it to relevant user views. When the subscriber agent
receives an XML document from a publisher agent, it fi rst refers to the latest XML docu-
ment based on the integrated process model from the XML document repository, modifi es
it according to the received XML document, and inserts the modifi ed XML document based
on the integrated process model into the XML document repository. Then, the subscriber
