Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
We use the Eclipse environment in MINERVA, integrating several plug-ins to
support BPSOM definitions, including MediniQVT as the QVT engine. The BPMN
BP model is created by business and software people in a BPMN modeler which
exports the model. It is then loaded into Eclipse and marked by the Architect with
information to apply the QVT transformations, obtaining participants and its ports. To
generate the code, the MDA engine needs all the SoaML diagrams, completed later by
developers. For the example, we have integrated the MagicDraw Cameo SOA+ and
ModelPro Eclipse plug-ins, which can be downloaded from [19] with the BPMN BP
and SoaML services models, QVT transformations and input and output XMI files.
6 Related Work
We carried out a systematic review regarding the application of SOC and MDD para-
digms to BP, presented in [16]. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other work
that relates BPMN models directly to SoaML models the way we do. Regarding the
methodological approach, BPSOM has been defined over the same period as other
proposals shown in [11][16]. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning [20], which defines
a methodology for service development focusing on WS, the survey of methodologies
presented in [21], as well as a consolidated methodology for defining business and
software services, the SOMA plug-in for the RUP [22], which, as ours does, adds
activities, but to RUP, and Shape [23] ,which also uses SoaML, but with different
guides and no generation. For the model driven approach it is worth mentioning [24],
which defines guidelines and transformations from one model to other, [25] proposing
a method for service composition with a process to model generation, metamodels
and artifacts to be obtained, adding in [26] a value model for deriving services using
ATL [27].This is also used in [28], in which models, metamodels and transformations
are defined, moving from collaborative BP to a SOA model, generating BPEL. Our
proposal differs from these in several ways: firstly, BPSOM can be added to any ex-
isting base software development process, thus promoting reuse and making it easier
to adopt. Secondly, QVT transformations are integrated in the development environ-
ment, obtaining the models from which to generate code. Thirdly, the conceptual and
automatic guide is fully integrated in BPSOM. Finally, MINERVA framework inte-
grates existing standards, promoting standardization of development.
7 Conclusions and Future Work
BPSOM has been defined to guide service development from business processes,
integrated into MINERVA framework for continuous BP improvement. Its contribu-
tions are as follows: it allows the reuse of existing knowledge in the developing or-
ganization, by using the base software development process, adding specific elements
for service development. The use of the SoaML standard to model services supports
the definition of meaningful elements in specifying services from BP, in both a con-
ceptual and an automatic way. Finally, we have defined QVT transformations from
the BPMN metamodel to the SoaML metamodel that can be executed in the Eclipse
environment, obtaining an initial definition of service models. These QVT transfor-
mations were defined for previous versions of BPMN and SoaML, so we are updating
