Round-trip Business Process Driven SOA modelling between ARIS and Cordys

Abstract

Business process modelling is the core activity in Business Process Driven SOA. ARIS is as Business Process Analysis (BPA) tool adequate for analyzing and designing business processes, while the execution and monitoring of these processes is empowered by Cordys as Business Process Management Suite (BPMS). The challenge is to enable iterative round-trip modelling across these two tools. Event-driven Process Chains (EPC) and Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) have established themselves as the most used modelling languages in the industry. Coupling ARIS and Cordys involves 1) transforming the high-level business process models in EPC developed in ARIS into executable process models in Cordys BPMN, and 2) ensuring round-trip development by means of interoperability. This thesis proposes a conceptual framework to couple a BPA and BPMS tool for round-trip business process modelling. The framework utilizes concepts from the Model Driven Architecture for structural addressing interoperability and model transformations. Business process models are developed and assessed from high-level, operational and technical viewpoints. Depending on the level of interoperability wished for, different types of model transformations within and between these viewpoints apply. Ensuring interoperability with traceability may allow maintaining the perception on the real world with different viewpoints. The framework is applied on the ARIS and Cordys case. Analyzing and comparing the tools have given insight on type of models, the information for exchange, and where possible coupling points are. Model transformations are defined for EPC and Cordys BPMN models. Results of the framework provide a foundation on how to achieve interoperability between ARIS and Cordys.