The evolution of services oriented architecture and the centralization of services enable the expansion of business process management tools. The centralized solution for BPM brings more flexibility, and it also helps to build high-quality architecture. Currently there exist several solutions that support the BPM, and the selection of the proper tool can be difficult. Simultaneously, it is a rapidly growing industry which also brings several standards and principals. The main goal of my thesis is to help IT and business specialist with the selection and application of BPM into enterprise architecture.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2003. Graduate Programme in Computer Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-113). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: LINK NOT YET AVAILABLE.

L'orchestration des services Web décrite par le Web Service-Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL), fait désormais partie intégrante du Web moderne, comme le cloud computing, le Big Data, l'Internet des objets (IoT) et les réseaux sociaux. En effet, elle est au centre de nombreux systèmes d'information liés à une variété de domaines tels que le commerce électronique, les institutions financières et les systèmes de santé, etc. où des données sensibles sont partagées, ce qui pose d'importants problèmes de sécurité. WS- BPEL appelé aussi BPEL, est le langage standard pour construire des services Web complexes d'une manière pratique. Cependant, BPEL n'est pas rigoureusement défini comme un langage formel entrainant ainsi des problèmes d'ambiguïté et de confusion lors de sa compréhension. Par ailleurs, sans fondement formel, il ne serait pas possible de fournir des preuves garantissant le bon fonctionnement de services. Cette thèse adresse la formalisation de BPEL et présente une approche formelle basée sur la réécriture de programmes permettant d'appliquer des politiques de sécurité au niveau de ce langage. Plus précisément, étant donné une composition de services Web spécifiée en BPEL et une politique de sécurité décrite dans une logique temporelle comme LTL, notre approche vise à générer une nouvelle version de service Web qui respecte cette politique de sécurité. La nouvelle version du service se comporte exactement comme l'originale excepté quand la politique est sur le point d'être violée. Dans ce cas le processus pourrait accomplir d'autres actions ou tout simplement être arrêté. La formalisation de BPEL a été aussi traduite dans l'environnement K-Framework, ce qui ouvre la porte à l'utilisation de ses nombreux outils formels incluant un évaluateur de modèles pour l'analyse de services Web. / The Web services orchestration approach described by the Web Service-Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL), is now an integral part of the modern Web, such as cloud computing, Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and social networks. Indeed, it is at the center of many information systems related to a variety of domains such as e-commerce, financial institutions and healthcare systems, etc. where sensitive data is shared, which creates significant security issues. WS-BPEL, also called BPEL, is the standard language for building complex Web services in a practical way. However, BPEL is not rigorously defined as a formal language thus leading to problems of ambiguity and confusion when understanding it. Moreover, without a formal basis, it would not be possible to provide any proof guaranteeing the proper functioning of services. This thesis addresses the formalization of BPEL and presents a formal approach based on the rewriting of programs allowing the enforcement of security policies on this language. More precisely, given a composition of Web services specified in BPEL and a security policy described in a temporal logic like LTL, our approach aims to generate a new version of the Web service which respects the given security policy. The new version of the service behaves exactly like the original one except when the policy is about to be violated. In this case the process could take other actions or simply be stopped. The formalization of BPEL has also been translated into the K-Framework environment, which opens the door to the use of its many formal tools including a model checker for the analysis of Web services.

Recentemente, várias abordagens estão sendo propostas na área de modelagem de processos de negócio. Dentre elas estão as linguagens BPEL e NPDL. BPEL é uma linguagem de representação e execução de processos de negócio que se mostrou bastante expressiva e uma forte candidata a padrão de mercado. NPDL é uma linguagem de definição de processos de negócio baseada em uma extensão de álgebra de processos chamada ACP. NPDL possui uma ferramenta capaz de interpretar e controlar a execução de processos de negócio chamada de NavigationPlanTool. A tradução de processos BPEL para expressões NPDL tem como objetivo fornecer aos processos descritos em BPEL um ambiente de controle e execução baseado em um formalismo algébrico. Entretanto, isso não é uma tarefa fácil. A presença de conceitos em BPEL que não são mapeáveis para NPDL faz com que grande parte da expressividade de BPEL se perca na tradução. Essa perda se dá pela limitação da própria ACP, na qual NPDL se baseia. Para sanar essa dificuldade, surgiu a idéia de estender ou trocar a base algébrica da NPDL. Substituindo a ACP por outro arcabouço algébrico ou incorporando idéias de outras álgebras, seria possível tornar a NPDL mais próxima de BPEL, facilitando, assim, o trabalho de mapeamento. Dentre os arcabouços formais disponíveis, LOTOS tem se mostrado uma interessante alternativa à ACP como base para a NPDL. Para comprovar os benefícios da utilização de conceitos de LOTOS na NPDL ou, até mesmo, de uma troca da base algébrica da NPDL de ACP para LOTOS, este trabalho faz um estudo comparativo entre esses dois formalismos algébricos, buscando encontrar a álgebra com maior expressividade e que represente melhor os conceitos presentes em BPEL. Para essa comparação, serão utilizados os principais conceitos existentes na linguagem BPEL, bem como os Padrões de Controle de Fluxo de Workflow. Não pertence ao escopo deste trabalho a implementação da NPDL usando LOTOS como base formal. / Recently, several approaches are being proposed in the business process modeling area. Among them are BPEL and NPDL languages. BPEL is a business process representation and execution language that has showed itself to be very expressive and a strong candidate to market reference. NPDL is a business process definition language based on a process algebra extension called ACP. NPDL has a tool called NavigationPlanTool that is able to interpret and control the business processes execution. The translation from BPEL processes to NPDL expressions aims to provide to BPEL processes a control and execution environment based on an algebraic foundation. However, this is not an easy task. Due to the translation, the presence of BPEL concepts that can´t be mapped to NPDL results in a heavy BPEL expressiveness loss. This loss occurs by the limitation of ACP, in which NPDL is based on. To solve this problem, the idea of extending or replacing the NPDL algebraic base has appeared. Replacing ACP with other algebraic framework or incorporating ideas from other algebras, could make NPDL closer to BPEL, turning the mapping work easier. Among the formal frameworks available, LOTOS has showed itself an interesting alternative to ACP as an NPDL basis. To prove the benefits of using LOTOS concepts in NPDL, or even exchanging the NPDL algebraic base from ACP to LOTOS, this work presents a comparative study between these two algebraic foundations, trying to find the most expressive algebra and the one that best represents the BPEL concepts. For this comparison, the BPEL main concepts and the Workflow Control-Flow Patterns will be used. The NPDL implementation using LOTOS as formal foundation is out of the scope of this work.

Recentemente, por conta do dinamismo existente no ambiente de negócio no qual as organizações devem adequar-se mais rapidamente às mudanças, os Sistemas de Informação (SIs) precisam também adequar-se para continuar agregando valor. Diante desse cenário e do uso de serviços eletrônicos distribuídos na rede para o desenvolvimento de sistemas, faz-se necessário o surgimento de novas abordagens em engenharia de sistemas. Sendo assim, surge a disciplina de Engenharia de Requisitos Orientada a Serviços (EROS) que trata da definição de processos e metodologias para captar os requisitos de serviços tanto do ponto de vista de consumidores de serviço quanto de fornecedores de serviço. No contexto de EROS, este trabalho explora alternativas às descrições sugeridas para os metamodelos RGPS (do inglês: Role, Goal, Process and Service) uma abordagem em EROS propondo uma nova definição que visa, principalmente, incorporar à RGPS as vantagens de outros modelos já estabelecidos na literatura. Sendo assim, a nova abordagem aqui proposta, chamada de WS&i*-RGPS, para a descrição das camadas Papel e Meta, propõe o uso do framework i*. E, para a descrição das camadas Processo e Serviço, a nova abordagem propõe o uso de WS-BPEL/WSDL. Esse trabalho apresenta também uma comparação sistemática entre a abordagem WS&i*-RGPS e outras abordagens semelhantes identificadas na literatura EROS. A comparação sistemática entre as abordagens em EROS, incluindo a nova abordagem aqui proposta, considera três parâmetros comparativos e identifica que a abordagem WS&i*-RGPS cobre mais parâmetros que as abordagens em EROS que se baseiam nos metamodelos RGPS, indicando que WS&i*-RGPS é uma alternativa melhor às soluções inicialmente propostas pelos autores dos metamodelos RGPS. / Due to the recent business environment dynamism in which organizations must quickly adapt to the changes, Information Systems also need to adapt to these changes in order to keep adding value. Taking into account this scenario and the use of electronic services distributed on the network to develop systems, the advent of new approaches in Systems Engineering is necessary. Therefore, a new discipline, Service-Oriented Requirements Engineering (SORE), was proposed, which deals with the definition of processes and methodologies in order to capture services requirements beneath two different perspectives: service consumers and service providers. In SORE context, this work aims at exploring some alternatives for those descriptions proposed by the Role, Goal, Process and Service (RGPS) meta-models, proposing a new approach called WS&i*-RGPS in order to incorporate to RGPS the advantages of other models well established in the literature. Accordingly, in order to describe the Role and Goal layers, this new approach proposes the use of the i* framework. Additionally, in order to describe the Process and Service layers, this new approach proposes the use of WS-BPEL/WSDL languages. This work also presents a systematic comparison among SORE approaches, including WS&i*-RGPS. This comparison considers three comparative parameters and identifies that WS&i*-RGPS covers more parameters than other approaches in SORE that uses RGPS metamodels. These results indicates WS&i*-RGPS as a better alternative comparing it to other RGPS approaches.

Recentemente, por conta do dinamismo existente no ambiente de negócio no qual as organizações devem adequar-se mais rapidamente às mudanças, os Sistemas de Informação (SIs) precisam também adequar-se para continuar agregando valor. Diante desse cenário e do uso de serviços eletrônicos distribuídos na rede para o desenvolvimento de sistemas, faz-se necessário o surgimento de novas abordagens em engenharia de sistemas. Sendo assim, surge a disciplina de Engenharia de Requisitos Orientada a Serviços (EROS) que trata da definição de processos e metodologias para captar os requisitos de serviços tanto do ponto de vista de consumidores de serviço quanto de fornecedores de serviço. No contexto de EROS, este trabalho explora alternativas às descrições sugeridas para os metamodelos RGPS (do inglês: Role, Goal, Process and Service) uma abordagem em EROS propondo uma nova definição que visa, principalmente, incorporar à RGPS as vantagens de outros modelos já estabelecidos na literatura. Sendo assim, a nova abordagem aqui proposta, chamada de WS&i*-RGPS, para a descrição das camadas Papel e Meta, propõe o uso do framework i*. E, para a descrição das camadas Processo e Serviço, a nova abordagem propõe o uso de WS-BPEL/WSDL. Esse trabalho apresenta também uma comparação sistemática entre a abordagem WS&i*-RGPS e outras abordagens semelhantes identificadas na literatura EROS. A comparação sistemática entre as abordagens em EROS, incluindo a nova abordagem aqui proposta, considera três parâmetros comparativos e identifica que a abordagem WS&i*-RGPS cobre mais parâmetros que as abordagens em EROS que se baseiam nos metamodelos RGPS, indicando que WS&i*-RGPS é uma alternativa melhor às soluções inicialmente propostas pelos autores dos metamodelos RGPS. / Due to the recent business environment dynamism in which organizations must quickly adapt to the changes, Information Systems also need to adapt to these changes in order to keep adding value. Taking into account this scenario and the use of electronic services distributed on the network to develop systems, the advent of new approaches in Systems Engineering is necessary. Therefore, a new discipline, Service-Oriented Requirements Engineering (SORE), was proposed, which deals with the definition of processes and methodologies in order to capture services requirements beneath two different perspectives: service consumers and service providers. In SORE context, this work aims at exploring some alternatives for those descriptions proposed by the Role, Goal, Process and Service (RGPS) meta-models, proposing a new approach called WS&i*-RGPS in order to incorporate to RGPS the advantages of other models well established in the literature. Accordingly, in order to describe the Role and Goal layers, this new approach proposes the use of the i* framework. Additionally, in order to describe the Process and Service layers, this new approach proposes the use of WS-BPEL/WSDL languages. This work also presents a systematic comparison among SORE approaches, including WS&i*-RGPS. This comparison considers three comparative parameters and identifies that WS&i*-RGPS covers more parameters than other approaches in SORE that uses RGPS metamodels. These results indicates WS&i*-RGPS as a better alternative comparing it to other RGPS approaches.

Recentemente, várias abordagens estão sendo propostas na área de modelagem de processos de negócio. Dentre elas estão as linguagens BPEL e NPDL. BPEL é uma linguagem de representação e execução de processos de negócio que se mostrou bastante expressiva e uma forte candidata a padrão de mercado. NPDL é uma linguagem de definição de processos de negócio baseada em uma extensão de álgebra de processos chamada ACP. NPDL possui uma ferramenta capaz de interpretar e controlar a execução de processos de negócio chamada de NavigationPlanTool. A tradução de processos BPEL para expressões NPDL tem como objetivo fornecer aos processos descritos em BPEL um ambiente de controle e execução baseado em um formalismo algébrico. Entretanto, isso não é uma tarefa fácil. A presença de conceitos em BPEL que não são mapeáveis para NPDL faz com que grande parte da expressividade de BPEL se perca na tradução. Essa perda se dá pela limitação da própria ACP, na qual NPDL se baseia. Para sanar essa dificuldade, surgiu a idéia de estender ou trocar a base algébrica da NPDL. Substituindo a ACP por outro arcabouço algébrico ou incorporando idéias de outras álgebras, seria possível tornar a NPDL mais próxima de BPEL, facilitando, assim, o trabalho de mapeamento. Dentre os arcabouços formais disponíveis, LOTOS tem se mostrado uma interessante alternativa à ACP como base para a NPDL. Para comprovar os benefícios da utilização de conceitos de LOTOS na NPDL ou, até mesmo, de uma troca da base algébrica da NPDL de ACP para LOTOS, este trabalho faz um estudo comparativo entre esses dois formalismos algébricos, buscando encontrar a álgebra com maior expressividade e que represente melhor os conceitos presentes em BPEL. Para essa comparação, serão utilizados os principais conceitos existentes na linguagem BPEL, bem como os Padrões de Controle de Fluxo de Workflow. Não pertence ao escopo deste trabalho a implementação da NPDL usando LOTOS como base formal. / Recently, several approaches are being proposed in the business process modeling area. Among them are BPEL and NPDL languages. BPEL is a business process representation and execution language that has showed itself to be very expressive and a strong candidate to market reference. NPDL is a business process definition language based on a process algebra extension called ACP. NPDL has a tool called NavigationPlanTool that is able to interpret and control the business processes execution. The translation from BPEL processes to NPDL expressions aims to provide to BPEL processes a control and execution environment based on an algebraic foundation. However, this is not an easy task. Due to the translation, the presence of BPEL concepts that can´t be mapped to NPDL results in a heavy BPEL expressiveness loss. This loss occurs by the limitation of ACP, in which NPDL is based on. To solve this problem, the idea of extending or replacing the NPDL algebraic base has appeared. Replacing ACP with other algebraic framework or incorporating ideas from other algebras, could make NPDL closer to BPEL, turning the mapping work easier. Among the formal frameworks available, LOTOS has showed itself an interesting alternative to ACP as an NPDL basis. To prove the benefits of using LOTOS concepts in NPDL, or even exchanging the NPDL algebraic base from ACP to LOTOS, this work presents a comparative study between these two algebraic foundations, trying to find the most expressive algebra and the one that best represents the BPEL concepts. For this comparison, the BPEL main concepts and the Workflow Control-Flow Patterns will be used. The NPDL implementation using LOTOS as formal foundation is out of the scope of this work.

Dans ce mémoire, nous proposons une méthode pour la génération des cas de test pour des processus métiers exprimés en langage BPEL. Cette méthode tient compte de la nature concurrente de ce langage ainsi que des caractéristiques qui lui sont propres. Elle adopte une approche orientée chemin. Ce faisant, ladite méthode définit une extension de la version usuelle du graphe de flot de contrôle (CFG) - baptisée BPEL Control Flow Graph (B-CFG) - pour la traduction du code BPEL en un modèle. En parcourant ce modèle, des chemins de test concurrents, qui sont à habiller par la suite par des données de test, sont générés. Ces chemins concurrents sont représentés d'une façon formelle et appropriée. La génération de ces chemins se fait selon différents critères de couverture. Ces critères, qui ont été à la base définis pour la programmation séquentielle, nous les avons adaptés de façon à pouvoir les appliquer pour le cas d'un langage concurrent comme le BPEL. Finalement, des propositions de pistes de solution sont fournies pour la question de génération de données de test, ainsi que pour la question de spécification/exécution des cas de test. ______________________________________________________________________________

Business processes are increasingly used by organizations to automate their activities. Written in languages like WS-BPEL, they allow an institution to describe precisely its internal operations. As the pace of change increases, however, both organizations and their internal processes are required to be more flexible; they have to account for an increasing amount of externally-driven environment state, or context, and modify their behavior accordingly. This puts a significant burden on business-process programmers, who now have to source, track, and update context from multiple entities, in addition to implementing and maintaining core business logic. Implementing this state-maintenance logic in a WS-BPEL business process is involved. This is because WS-BPEL business processes are modeled as if they were the only thing operating in, and making changes to, the business environment. This mental model does not reflect the real world, where organizations and entities depend on state that is outside their control – state that is modified independent of, and concurrent with, the organization’s activities. This makes it hard for business-process programmers to write context-dependent processes in a concise manner. This thesis presents a solution to this problem based on the notion of a context variable for WS-BPEL business processes. It describes how context variables are designed using the WS-BPEL language-extension mechanism, and how these variables can be used in business processes. It also outlines an architecture for offering context in the web services environment that uses constructs from the WS-Resource Framework specification. It shows how changes in context can be propagated from these context sources to WS-BPEL context variables using WS-Notification-based publish/subscribe. The design also includes a standards-compliant method for extending web-service responses with references to context sources. Finally, a prototype validating the overall system is described, and enhancements for increasing the utility of context variables proposed. This solution offers significant advantages: it builds on established practices and well-understood message-exchange patterns, leverages widely used languages, frameworks and specifications, is standards compliant, and has a low barrier-to-entry for business-process programmers. Moreover, when compared to existing alternatives, this solution requires significantly less process logic and fewer interface changes to maintain constantly changing environment state.

Business processes are increasingly used by organizations to automate their activities. Written in languages like WS-BPEL, they allow an institution to describe precisely its internal operations. As the pace of change increases, however, both organizations and their internal processes are required to be more flexible; they have to account for an increasing amount of externally-driven environment state, or context, and modify their behavior accordingly. This puts a significant burden on business-process programmers, who now have to source, track, and update context from multiple entities, in addition to implementing and maintaining core business logic. Implementing this state-maintenance logic in a WS-BPEL business process is involved. This is because WS-BPEL business processes are modeled as if they were the only thing operating in, and making changes to, the business environment. This mental model does not reflect the real world, where organizations and entities depend on state that is outside their control – state that is modified independent of, and concurrent with, the organization’s activities. This makes it hard for business-process programmers to write context-dependent processes in a concise manner. This thesis presents a solution to this problem based on the notion of a context variable for WS-BPEL business processes. It describes how context variables are designed using the WS-BPEL language-extension mechanism, and how these variables can be used in business processes. It also outlines an architecture for offering context in the web services environment that uses constructs from the WS-Resource Framework specification. It shows how changes in context can be propagated from these context sources to WS-BPEL context variables using WS-Notification-based publish/subscribe. The design also includes a standards-compliant method for extending web-service responses with references to context sources. Finally, a prototype validating the overall system is described, and enhancements for increasing the utility of context variables proposed. This solution offers significant advantages: it builds on established practices and well-understood message-exchange patterns, leverages widely used languages, frameworks and specifications, is standards compliant, and has a low barrier-to-entry for business-process programmers. Moreover, when compared to existing alternatives, this solution requires significantly less process logic and fewer interface changes to maintain constantly changing environment state.