Variability modeling to develop flexible service-oriented applications

Abstract

To cope with requirement changes flexibly and rapidly, the existing component-based paradigm is being evolved into a service-oriented computing paradigm. The main characteristic of the service-oriented computing paradigm is that service-oriented applications are developed as loosely coupled services that reflect business concerns. This paradigm also promotes business agility, facilitating quick reactions to business changes. Therefore, to enhance and support the benefits of the service-oriented computing paradigm, we must consider how to improve flexibility and reusability during the development of service-oriented applications. We propose the variability modeling approach to specify and control the common and distinguishing characteristics of service-oriented applications. That is, the key concepts of product-line technology can be used to make service-oriented applications more flexible and reusable. This paper describes variability modeling at two levels; the composition level and the specification level. At the composition level, we describe the variability of composition and the flow of domain services that fulfill business processes. At the specification level, we present a domain service that is an abstract service with variability. The use of our systematic variability modeling approach can greatly increase the flexibility, applicability, and reusability of service-oriented applications.

Keywords

Variability / software product line / reuse / service oriented software / flexible service model

References

[1] Alves, A., Arkin, A., Askary, S., Barreto, C., Bloch, B., Curbera, F., Ford, M., Goland, Y., Guízar, A., Kartha, N., Liu, C.K., Khalaf, R., König, D., Marin, M., Mehta, V., Thatte, S., Rijn, D.V.D., Yendluri, P. & Yiu, A. (2007). Web services business process execution language, version 2.0. Available via DIALOG. http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsbpel/2.0/OS/wsbpel-v2.0-OS.html. Cited April 11, 2007

[2] Arsanjani, A. (2004). Service-oriented modeling and architecture: how to identify, specify and realize services for your SOA. IBM Developer Works. Available via DIALOG. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-soa-design1/. Cited November 9, 2004

[3] Arkin, A., Askary, S., Fordin, S., Jekeli, W., Kawaguchi, K., Orchard, D., Pogliani, S., Riemer, K., Struble, S., Takacsi-Nagy, P., Trickovic, I. & Zimek, S. (2002). Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) 1.0. Available via DIALOG. http://www.w3.org/TR/wsci/. Cited August 8, 2002

[4] Arsanjani A., Zhang L.J., Ellis M., Allam A., Channabasavaiah K.. S3: a service oriented reference architecture. IT Professional, 2007, 9(3): 10-17.

[5] Bayer, J., Buhl, W., Giese, C., Lehner, T., Ocampo, A., Puhlmann, F., Richter, E., Schnieders, A., Weiland, J., & Weske, M. (2005). Process family engineering-modeling variant-rich processes. PESOA-Report No. 18/2005, September 1, 2005

[6] Bichler M., Lin K.J.. Service-oriented computing. Computer, 2006, 39(3): 99-101.

[7] Chang, S., La, H. & Kim, S. (2007). A comprehensive approach to service adaptation. In: International Conference on Service Oriented Computing and Applications, 191–198, Newport Beach, California, USA, June 19–20, 2007, IEEE Computer Society

[8] Clauß, M. (2001). Generic modeling using UML extension for variability. In: Proceedings of OOPSLA Workshop on Domain Specific Visual Languages, 11–18, Tampa Bay, Florida, USA, October 14–18, 2001

[9] Clements, P. & Northrop, L. (2002). Software Product Lines Practices and Patterns. Addison-Wesley

[10] Erl, T. (2008). SOA Principles of Service Design. Prentice-Hall

[11] Fremantle P., Weerawarana S., Khalaf R.. Enterprise services. Communications of the ACM, 2002, 45(10): 77-82.

[12] Gomma, H. (2004). Designing Software Product Lines with UML: From Use Cased to Pattern-Based Software Architectures. Addison-Wesley

[13] Hamadi R., Benatallah B.. A Petri net-based model for web service composition. Australasian Database Conference, 2003, Australia: Adelaide 191-200.

[14] Kang, K., Cohen, S., Hess, J., Novak, W. & Peterson, S. (1990). Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis (FODA) feasibility study. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University technical report CMU/SEI-90-TR-21, November 1990

[15] Hashemian, S.V. & Mavaddat, F. (2005). A graph-based approach to web services composition. In: 2005 Symposium on Applications and the Internet, 183–189, Trento, Italy, January 31–February 4, 2005, IEEE Computer Society

[16] Kang K., Kim S., Lee J., Kim K., Shing E., Huh M.. Form: a reature oriented reuse method with domain specific reference architectures. Annals of Software Engineering, 1998, 5(1): 143-168.

[17] Keepence B., Mannion M.. Using patterns to model variability in product families. IEEE Software, 1999, 16(4): 102-108.

[18] Huhns M., Singh M.P.. Service-oriented computing: key concepts and principles. Internet Computing, 2005, 9(1): 75-81.

[19] Kwon, O., Yoon, S. & Shin, G. (1999). Component-based development environment: an integrated model of object-oriented techniques and other technologies. In: International Workshop on Component-Based Software Engineering, 47–53, May 17–18, 1999

[20] Lang Q.A., Su S.Y.W.. AND/OR graph and search algorithm for discovering composite web services. International Journal of Web Services Research, 2005, 2(4): 46-64.

[21] Liang J., Nahrstedt K.. Service composition for generic service graphs. International Journal on Multimedia Systems, 2006, 11(6): 568-581.

[22] Liu, J. & Chao, L. (2006). Web services as a graph and its application for service discovery. In: International Conference on Grid and Cooperative Computing, 293–300, Changsha, Hunan, China, October 21–23, 2006, IEEE Computer Society

[23] Michlmayr A., Rosenberg F., Leitner P., Dustdar S.. Web services compositions modelling and choreographies analysis. International Journal of Web Services Research, 2010, 7(2): 87-110.

[24] Mittal, K. (2006). Service oriented unified process. Available via DIALOG. http://www.kunalmittal.com/html/soup.html

[25] Moon, M., Hong, M. & Yeom, K. (2008). Two-level variability analysis for business process with reusability and extensibility. In: International Conference on Computer Software and Applications, 263–270, Turku, Finland, July 28–August 1, 2008, IEEE Computer Society

[26] Moon M., Yeom K., Chae H.S.. An approach to developing domain requirements as a core asset based on commonality and variability in a product line. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2005, 31(7): 551-569.

[27] Nickul, D., Reitman, L., Ward, J. & Wilber, J. (2007). Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and specialized messaging patterns. Adobe Systems Incorporated White Paper. Available via DIALOG. http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/pdfs/Services_Oriented_Architecture_from_Adobe.pdf. Cited, December 7, 2007

[28] Papazoglou M.P., Van Den Heuvel W.J.. Service-oriented design and development methodology. International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2006, 2(4): 412-442.

[29] Papazoglou M.P., Van Den Heuvel W.J.. Service-oriented architectures: approaches, technologies and research issues. International Journal on Very Large Data Bases, 2007, 16(3): 389-415.

[30] Rosen, M. (2006). BPM and SOA — where does one end and the other begin? BPTrends Columns & Article. Available via DIALOG. http://www.bptrends.com. Cited January, 2006

[31] Saab C.B., Coulibaly D., Haddad S., Melliti T., Moreauz P., Rampacek S.. An integrated framework for web services orchestration. International Journal of Web Services Research, 2009, 6(4): 1-29.

[32] Segura, S., Benavide, D., Ruiz-Cortes, A. & Trinidad, P. (2007). A taxonomy of variability in web services flows. In: Service Orietned Architectures and Product Lines — What Is the Connection? (SOAPL-07), Kyoto, Japan, September 10, 2007

[33] Sinnema M., Deelstra S.. Classifying variability modeling techniques. Information and Software Technology, 2007, 49(7): 717-739.

[34] Skogan, D., Grønmo, R. & Solheim, I. (2004). Web service composition in UML. In: International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, 47–57, Monterey, California, USA, September 20–24, 2004, IEEE Computer Society

[35] Tut, M.T. & Edmond, D. (2002). The use of patterns in service composition, web services, E-business, and the semantic web. LNCS2512:28–40

[36] Valero V., Cambronero M.E., Diaz G., Macia H.. A Petri net approach for the design and analysis of web services choreographies. The Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming, 2009, 78: 359-380.

[37] Weiss, D.M. & Lai, C.T.R. (1999). Software Product-Line Engineering: A Family Based Software Development Process. Addison-Wesley

[38] Zhai Y., Su H., Zhan S.. A reflective framework to improve the adaptability of BPEL-based web service composition. International Conference on Services Computing, 2008, 1: 343-350.

[39] Zirpins, C., Lamersdorf, W. & Baier, T. (2004). Flexible coordination of service interaction patterns. In: International Conference on Service oriented Computing, 49–56, New York, USA, November 15–18, 2004, ACM Press