1. Slide 1 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS: Mobile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems Jan. 25, 2000 (rev. 26. Jan.) Reidar Conradi, Mads Nygård Dept. Computer and Information Science (IDI) NTNU www.idi.ntnu.no/grupper/su/mowahs.html www.idi.ntnu.no/grupper/db Tel +47 73.593444 (rc), +47 73.593470 (mn), Fax +47 73.594466

2. Slide 2 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS motivation (1) -- virtual organizations with mobile and distributed actors:

3. Slide 3 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS motivation (2) Applications: nomadism, virtual organizations –300 mill. mobile phones in Jan. 2000, 3 bill. in 2005 and 10% with powerful PCs/PDAs? –Entry ticket to become a global (virtual?) company: reduced by factor 100 in recent years. –Enormous dynamics: 3C convergence, liberalization. –New work modes: RAD, nomadic, 100% on-line. Technology: mobility, agents,... –“Deluge”: www, IP, Java, CORBA, XML, applets / servlets / displets, agents = active html pages?, BSCW tool, … –E.g. XML used for sending electricity bills to bank, XML/Java tools to make graphical editors.

4. Slide 4 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS motivation (3) The new network economy: international companies, managers, developers, products, markets. The industry: uses the new IT (or else it dies), but also reinforces the same technology. UMTS: ”UMTS is a set of services which we cannot imagine today, with a technology that does not yet exist, for user needs which we don’t yet know”. --- Juha Rupeli of Nokia, chairman.

5. Slide 5 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS motivation (4) Some challenges: –How to support both fixed and portable PCs / PDAs? –How to support different and varying connectivity? –How to federate heterogeneous devices, tools, data? –How to effectively support work on mobile platforms? –How to fast and reliably build / evolve such support? –How to asses the impact on humans / virt. organizations? Piggy-back on existing technologies and solutions: –CAGIS: Multiagent architecture for prosesses / transactions. –CAGIS: Cooperating workspaces and meeting places. –Other: groupware, agents, XML, multimedia, UMTS, WfM process interaction standard,...

6. Slide 6 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS: Mobile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems (1) Newly accepted NFR basic R&D project, 2001-04. Sw.eng. and database groups at IDI: –2 IDI teachers: Reidar Conradi, Mads Nygård. –2 PhD students: Carl Erik Sørensen, NN? –2 postdocs: Alf Inge Wang, Heri Ramampiaro (?). Budget: 5 mill. kr totally. Outspring from CAGIS project in 1997-2001. Support nomadic computing over heterogeneous platforms: process and transaction support. Internationalization, coop. with Telenor(?),...

7. Slide 7 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS goals (2) G1) Helping to understand and to continuously assess and improve workprocesses in virtual organizations. G2) Providing a flexible, common work environment to execute and share real workprocesses and their artifacts, applicable on a variety of electronic devices (from big servers to small PDAs). G3) Disseminating results to colleagues, students, companies, and community at large.

8. Slide 8 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS approach, iterative (3) Design a flexible work environment for virtual organizations using heterogeneous devices, with support for processes and their artifacts and transactions. Implement a testbed for process/transaction support for virtual organizations, using XML- based and mobile agents. Use real rqmts/scenarios to evaluate the above, e.g. on software development and net- based education. 25% on empirical work.

9. Slide 9 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS results (4) R1) A XML-formalism to describe/execute federated and heterogeneous processes and coop. Workspaces/transactions (G2). R2) A simple set of tools to support the above, based on agent technology (G2). R3) A set of scenarios with defined work models, using above formalisms/tools (G1). R4) A body of experiences from empirical studies of such technologies (G1). R5) Presentation material, courses (G3).

10. Slide 10 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS: Problem context (5) Distributed and heterogeneous environments Manage people working: –Different places –Different times –Different tools –Different processes and data Organisations divided into autonomous sub- organisations Plus the new IT opportunities...

11. Slide 11 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Slide 11 MOWAHS Technical Motivation (6) Problems with traditional process / workflow / groupware architectures: –Too centralized –Too homogenous models –Hard to change tools and models –Need open-ended spectrum of cooperative process tools –No integration of data access and process support –Traditional transaction models / data accessing too stiff Solution 1: Agent-based architectures. Solution 2: Novel transaction models. Solution 3: Use XML, Java,...

12. Slide 12 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. CAGIS Multi-Agent Architecture for Cooperative Software Engineering

13. Slide 13 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. CAGIS Process Support

14. Slide 14 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Slide 14 Ex. CAGIS nested transactions

15. Slide 15 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Slide 15 Agent Piece of autonomous software System agents Local agents Interaction agents –Communication agents –Negotiation agents –Coordination agents –Mediation agents,...

16. Slide 16 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Slide 16 Ex. Multi-Agent Architecture Network of problem solvers (agents) Advantages: –Decentralisation –Reuse of previous components –Cooperative work support –Flexibility Agents coupled to cooperation spaces: –Workspaces: for artifacts (files, documents) –Agent meeting places: for negotiation / coop.

17. Slide 17 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Slide 17 Workspace Human and software agents access shared data and tools Private and shared workspaces Shared workspaces used for grouping people

18. Slide 18 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Slide 18 Agent Meeting Place Place for software agent interaction Trading of information and services Facilities for: –Inter-agent communication Provide a predefined set of conversation types Specify a common syntax Specify a common semantics Specify pragmatics for agents –Inter-agent negotiation

19. Slide 19 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Process activity in a process fragment, i.e. in a local workflow system Process: sum of process fragments Process fragment: in a local workspace, coupled to role/person and tools -- in a PDA/PC. Simple activities in fragments, with links Ex. Activities in fragments / workspaces: Workspace 1 Workspace 2 Activity 1Activity 2 Activity 3 Activity 4 Activity 5

20. Slide 20 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. Process model schema, in DTD/XML <!ELEMENT process (name, (processfragment)+> <!ELEMENT processfragment(name, (workspace), (activity)+)> <!ELEMENT activity(name, (workspace), (prelink)*, (postlink)*, (state), (due)?, (feedback)?, (description), (code)*)>

21. Slide 21 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. Process (activity) model in XML compile Kramer Elaine/code Elaine/read document George/build … Workspace: George build Workspace: Elaine code read document Workspace: Kramer compile

22. Slide 22 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Interconnection of components Agents: created by people Agents: grouped mainly as people Agent interaction: via agent meeting places Agent interaction: also via workspaces, taking data from/to traditional repositories Within a process fragment / workspace: simple, local process models -- in any format Between process fragments: also GlueServer to “federate” local fragments and support coop.

23. Slide 23 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. GlueServer, to connect local process fragments that need to cooperate

24. Slide 24 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Process Support Tools Process Server –Process engine (local) –GlueServer (central) –Registration and un-registration of activities –Moving process fragments Process Modeller (simple text editor) Agenda Manager –Agenda browser –Activity browser Process Monitor –Monitor progress and state of process –Change process state information

25. Slide 25 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. The Modeller and Agenda tools

26. Slide 26 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. The Activity and Monitor tools

27. Slide 27 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Need flexible transaction support Serializable (“ACID”) transactions insufficient for creative, cooperative work: –Need structured, not flat transactions: hierarchy, networks –Data sharing levels: private, group, project, global –Long-lived activities: days, not seconds –Flexible locking schemes, may break locks –Precommit (“sneak preview”) of temporary data versions –User-defined consistency rules –No forced aborts -- partial recovery schemes –Coupling to versioning and merging –Awareness: triggers / notifiers –Part of flexible workspace support, incl. process

28. Slide 28 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project CAGISTrans Offer flexible transaction models, user-tailorable Nested transactions Can relax all of ACID properties in a controlled way Sophisticated locking and awareness schemes Specification in XML of: –Transaction characteristics (static) –Execution rules (dynamic) Associated editors and interpreters Integrated in workspace support, p.t. using simple files

29. Slide 29 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project CAGIS Transaction Management System

30. Slide 30 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Ex. Scenario: CAGIS applied on Conference Paper Review

31. Slide 31 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project MOWAHS challenges Move to mobile, not just distributed setting. Allow different process / groupware formalisms/tools locally, i.e. federation. Couple transaction support to e.g. UML data model. Try out on realistic scenarios: –Network-based education, the mobile student –Virtual teams in sw.eng. (ourselves, students, industry?) => Cooperate with others on solutions and applications!!

32. Slide 32 MOWAHS: MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, NFR IKT2010 R&D project Possibilities for joint activities MUNIN: –Offer method support for developing multimedia / mobile applications wrt. process / transaction support. –Test out on students / developers. PATT/Parlay: similar, both for applications and platforms. HiA’s “The mobile student”: similar + applying such technologies/applications on own students. INCO: Use MOWAHS as testbed.