Tutorial al BPM 2008 in Milan

Vladimir Tosic, Patrick Hung and I (well, Vladimir mostly...) will present a tutorial on "Management of Service-Oriented Implementations of Business Processes: From Quality of Service to Business Value" at the Business Process Management (BPM 2008) conference in Milan on Sep 3rd.

Abstract follows:


Management (monitoring and control) of business processes is needed to ensure regular operation, attain or surpass the guaranteed quality of service (QoS), accommodate change, keep track of the consumed resources, and perform billing. Monitoring is used to measure QoS and/or business value attributes, while control is used to reactively/proactively ensure that the measured quantities are within desired (guaranteed) boundaries. To successfully perform management activities, a comprehensive specification of management goals is necessary. Management of business processes can be viewed from several aspects and at several layers of granularity. In this tutorial, we will discuss monitoring and control of service-oriented implementations of business processes, with particular emphasis on QoS management and maximization of business value. That is, we will assume that services implementing business process activities are using Web service technologies such as SOAP and the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and that they are composed using technologies such as the Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL). By QoS we will mean technical metrics such as response time, throughput, and availability, while by business value we will mean both financial metrics such as prices, profit, and return on investment (ROI) and non-financial business metrics such as number of customers, market share, and customer satisfaction. The tutorial will first clarify the importance of these topics and why the widely used basic Web service technologies are not enough. Then, it will explain theoretical principles for specification, monitoring, and control of QoS and business value attributes. Examples of these principles are contracts (including service level agreements - SLAs), policies, intermediaries, probes, and multiple request queues. Next, it will provide a critical analysis of several important specification languages, research infrastructures, industrial products, and standardization efforts in this area. Currently there are many more results on management maximizing QoS than on management maximizing business value, but the latter promises better alignment between business and information technology (IT). Therefore, this tutorial will also present a brief introduction into business-driven IT management (BDIM) and will discuss possible approaches to extend QoS driven management solutions into business value driven management solutions. At the end, a number of open topics and resources for further study will be identified. After attending this tutorial, participants will have general knowledge and understanding of the challenges and fundamental concepts related to the specification, monitoring, and control of QoS and business value attributes of Web services and business processes implemented with Web services, the state of the art in the area, and open research issues. This knowledge can help them in making decisions about using some of the existing technologies and/or in conducting further research and development in the area.