Business Process Interoperation Using OWL-P Response to the Semantic Web Services Challenge Amit Chopra, Nirmit Desai, Munindar P. Singh Department of Computer Science North Carolina State University 9 March 2006

Chopra, Desai, Singh2 Highlights OWL-P  Protocols, policies, and protocol composition OWL-P for phase 1 and phase 2  Mediation using protocols  Protocol adaptations for managing change  Discovery based on interaction compatibility Not just on simple service attributes Proposed directions  Commitments as a basis for semantics  Flexible interaction compatibility as criterion for selection

Chopra, Desai, Singh3 OWL-P Basics Protocol Logic specified by involves 1 2+ derives 1 1 defines Agent adopts 1+ Local Process 1 1 enacts Business Process aggregation of composition of 1 1 Implementation of 1 1+ Implementation of Business Protocol Role Skeleton Abstract entity Concrete entity Composite Skeleton couples 1 2+ Business Logic 1 1 consults 1 1 stipulates Composite Protocol 1 1+ composedOf 1 1+ derives Protocols: abstract, modular, publishable specifications of business interactions Policies: private business logic of the agents adopting roles Commitments provide semantics of the interactions

Chopra, Desai, Singh4 OWL-P Protocol Composition Specify dependencies among the component protocols in terms of  Role definitions: Role r 1 in protocol P 1 is adopted by the same agent that adopts role r 2 in P 2  Event ordering: Event e 1 in protocol P 1 precedes event e 2 in protocol P 2  Data flows: Parameter p in protocol P 1 is bound to parameter q in protocol P 2  Implications: Concept A in protocol P 1 implies concept B in protocol P 2 (used to tie operations on commitments: what counts as what)

Chopra, Desai, Singh5 OWL-P Contributions for Phase 1 Using Protocols as engineering abstractions for mediation and choreography Protocol subsumption as a means of comparing protocols

Chopra, Desai, Singh6 Mediation via OWL-P: 1 PIP3A4 as a protocol between Buyer and Seller roles PurchaseOrder as a protocol between LegacyBuyer and LegacySeller roles Composite protocol Purchase composed of PIP3A4 and PurchaseOrder  Blue adopts Buyer, Mediator adopts Seller and LegacyBuyer, and Moon adopts LegacySeller  Mappings are the set of composition axioms used to compose PIP3A4 and PurchaseOrder

Chopra, Desai, Singh7 Mediation via OWL-P: 2 Composition axioms not shown

Chopra, Desai, Singh8 OWL-P as a Basis for Discovery Match interactions, not just simple business attributes  Exact matches are impractical in open environments  Protocol subsumption supports flexible matching General protocols subsume specific protocols  For example, a payment (in general) subsumes payment by credit card or payment with cash  The payment mechanism is not a simple attribute: parties interact in different ways depending on the mechanism

Chopra, Desai, Singh9 OWL-P for Phase 2 Change in the Moon interface or PIP:  Model the change as a transformation and applied to the original protocol; or  Recompose the protocols with a new set of composition axioms Discovering a new business partner  The number of matching suppliers change according to the similarity function

Chopra, Desai, Singh10 OWL-P Prototype for Moon and Blue PIP3A4 OWL-P Legacy OWL-P Axioms Software Designer Composer PO OWL-P Local Policy Protocol Repository specify register Blue Skeleton (Jess) Blue Local Process + JMS JNDI Naming MediatorMediator Lookup PO 7 8 Mediator Skeleton (Jess) Local Policy + Mediator Local Process register 10 OWLP2Jess 6 9 register 11 Moon (Not shown Here)

Chopra, Desai, Singh11 Proposed Directions Emphasize contractual semantics for business interactions  Contracts are bases of metrics of preference, risk assessment, opportunity, and so on  Basis for verification and compliance Treat matching rigorously to support automated discovery  Base matching on the subsumption hierarchy of protocols, analogous to class hierarchies in object-oriented modeling

Chopra, Desai, Singh12 References 1.Ashok U. Mallya. Modeling and Enacting Business Processes via Commitment Protocols Among Agents. PhD, NCSU, Nirmit Desai, Ashok U. Mallya, Amit K. Chopra, Munindar P. Singh. Interaction Protocols as Design Abstractions for business Processes. IEEE transactions on software engineering, 31(12): , Amit K. Chopra, Munindar P. Singh. Contextualizing Commitment Protocols. AAMAS 2006, to appear 4.Nirmit Desai, Amit K. Chopra, Munindar P. Singh. Business Process Adaptations via Protocol Composition. (Unpublished) 5.OWL-P examples: