Andrea Nicolai

T-6 Italy

Angelo Corallo

eBMS – ISUFI University of Lecce

The Business Modelling Language

Agenda

1. The Business Modelling Language

2. BML Framework

3. BML 1.0

4. Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules

5. BML 2.0

6. SBEAVER project

7. Future Agenda

1.The Business Modelling Language

BML is thought to capture and model business knowledge in an easy way, in order to make it available for software tools supporting the business.

Objective: to make DBE platform more accessible to business people and, in particular, to those involved in SMEs. A direct action in business modelling by organizational people could be the right way in order to obtain more flexible and effective solutions;

in particular, this should allow:1. bridging the existing gap between technology and organization: business

models could be designed in a business-oriented perspective, obtaining actual CIMs that preserve formality and rigorousness needed by technology;

2. reducing costs related to ad hoc solutions development: if part of the development process is performed by business people IT professionals could focus on different activities or they can save time and effort overcoming communication problems.

Business Modelling Language

It is necessary to develop new modeling framework allowing to fill the gap between technology and organization, through which it could be possible to model business knowledge, representing the way a company works, in a language as much as possible similar to the language business experts use and at the same time as much as possible formal in order to orient and guide all the life cycle of the technological components, from its inception to its development to the management to the evolution.

One of the main obstacles in the adoption of digital technologies from organizations and communities depends on the divide between technological solution, which has reached a quite high level of maturity and the methodologies and technologies enabling business processes, and knowledge modeling. These methodologies and technologies are on one hand not enough connected with software development and management processes and on the other poorly usable and understandable from business users.

PHYSICAL ARCHITECTURE

PLATFORM Service Registry

Service Ontology

Domain Model PROCESS MODELLING

BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS

The divide between technology and business knowledge

From a computing to a business architecture

Node 1

Directory Service

1

Node 2

Node 4

Node 3

0 0

00

2

3

Registration in the directory0Request for service1

List of suitable service2Direct connection to service3

WSDLSemantic

web service

BMLebXML

Platform Independent Model Computer Independent Model

BML as a language to exchange business knowledge

DirectoryService

Business layer

Natural language editor

Business expert Business Description

XMI

Natural Language

Developers

MOF

MOF

Develop Service, Deploy it and register in the

Directory Service

Service

Service

Service

Service List corresponding to Business needs

Transaction 4

DESIGN TIME RUN TIME

BML can be used to create a new business layer for service architecture, allowing the use of the same languages for both software design and development and for e-business partners selection.

Search engine

BML as a language to support software development

Model

BusinessModel

SystemModel

LogicalModel

PhysicalModel

RequirementsModel

ComputationalModel

PlatformSpecific

Platformindepndent

Abstract class

Concrete class

CIM

BML should be thought in relation with technology enabling the improvement of productivity in software development and an increased quality, and longevity of the software developed. In such context BML would be a Computer Independent Model in MDA framework.

2.BML Framework

Meta modelling choice

We describe BML by a model: the model of the language describes the elements that can be used in the language.Every kind of element that a BML modeller can use in his or her model is defined by the meta model of the language the modeller uses.Because a meta model is also a model, a meta model itself must be written in a well-defined language (meta-language).

ModelModel

Meta-modelMeta-model Meta-Meta-languagelanguage

LanguageLanguage

is is written written

inin

is is written written

inin

is is defined defined

byby

BMLmetamodel

MOF

Car rentalmodel

BML

BML metamodel

The BML Metamodel defines an abstract syntax for the BML language using the MOF v1.4 model. Its basis are the six interrogatives - What, How, Where, Who, When and Why - of the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture. For each interrogative of the Zachman Framework a corresponding package in the metamodel has been created. Moreover, an additional package containing the root meta-concepts inherited by the other packages has been created.

Core, containing the basic elements used to describe other packages meta-concepts characteristics;BusinessOrganization, containing meta-concepts to model each business entity aspect, including its relationships, resources, products and services;BusinessProcess, describing behavioural aspects of a business organization, focusing on interaction with other organizations;BusinessMotivation, containing meta-concepts to describe the way in which an organization makes choices and defines its actions;BusinessLocation, containing the metamodel to define spatial references in a business model; BusinessEvent, describing the occurrences able to influence business behaviours;BusinessObject, containing meta-concepts to define primitive and user-defined data types, typically used for declaring the types of the class attributes.

BML Meta model

From BML meta model 2.0

M2

M0

M1

M3

BUSINESS META MODEL

BUSINESS DOMAIN MODEL BML MODEL

BML Model

MOF

LANGUAGEMETAMODEL

BML Model in Service DNA

BML Model + data in Service Manifest

From BML framework 2.0

BML architecture

BML toward other e-business standard

BML aims at being used as wide as possible; to reach this objective BML should be compatible with the most important standard in the e-business language:

1. BML uses ebXML core components in its basic vocabulary2. BML meta model is compatible with UMM meta model3. BML framework is MOF based and compatible with the Model Driven

Architecture4. BML meta model is compatible with OMG BEI architecture of business

modelling (Through the meta model and SBVR)5. BML framework is compatible with OWL and OWL-S (Through the meta

model and ODM)

3.BML 1.0

BML 1.0

BML MODEL

BML METAMODEL

<< reference>>

MOF

M1

M2

M3

<< instances>>

<< instances>>

ODM METAMODEL

<< instances>>

DOMAIN ONTOLOGY

<< instances>>

Further details in the other presentation

4.Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules

The Rule based approach

1The Business Rules Group, July 2000, Defining Business Rules ~ What Are They Really?, Final Report, revision 1.3

The Rule based approach came out in the 80s mainly from the work of the “Business Rules Group”. A rule-based approach can be described as a way “for identifying and articulating the rules which define the structure and control the operation of an enterprise”1; it represents a new way to think about enterprise and its rules, in order to enable a complete business representation made by and for business people.

Rules could play a very important role in defining business semantics: they can influence or guide behaviours and support policies, responding to environmental situations and events. This means that rules represent the primary means by which an organization can direct its business, defining the operative way to reach its objectives and perform its actions.

OMG in its Architecture of Business Modeling is developing an implementation of the business rules approach called “Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules” (SBVR)

The OMG Business Model Architecture

2Stan Hendryx, Hendryx & Associates, Architecture of Business Modelling, November 14, 2003

OMG, in the widest effort of the Model Driven Architecture, is developing a framework called Business Model Architecture in order to model any kind of human work activity, in any domain, in language familiar to domain experts2. Business Model Architecture is based on high level meta-model, that constitute the abstract syntax of the framework and on Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules that represents the concrete syntax.

Such approach allows the evolution in time of vocabularies and rules in different domains, granting simple mapping among domains and semantic integrations between communities;

OMG issued Business Semantics of Business Rule (BSBR) Request For Proposal, in order to create a standard “to allow business people to define the policies and rules by which they run their business in their own language, in terms of the things they deal with in the business, and to capture those rules in a way that is clear, unambiguous and readily translatable into other representations”.

Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules

Among the most interesting features that Business Modelling proposes we can consider:

SBVR is an innovative language based on a fact-oriented approach allowing semantic interoperability between models and tools in heterogeneous environment;SBVR allows the production of business vocabularies and rules; vocabulary plus rules constitute a shared domain model with the same expressive power of standard ontological languages; SBVR allows multilingual development, since it is based on separation between symbols and concepts; SBVR has to enable making business rules accessible to software tools, including tools that support the business experts in creating, finding, validating, and managing business rules, and tools that support the information technology experts in converting business rules into implementation rules for automated systems.SBVR provides interchange capabilities defining MOF/XMI mapping rules, that enable generating MOF-compliant models and XML schema.SBVR proposes Structured English as one of possibly many notations that can map to the SVBR Metamodel.

SBVR is a OMG standard from September 2005

Methodologies used in software developing, are typically applied only when a problem is already formulated and well described. The actual difficulty lies in the previous step, that is describing problems and expected functionalities.

Stakeholders involved in software development can express their ideas using a language very close to them, but they usually are not able to formalize these concepts in a clear and unambiguous way.

This implies a large effort in order to interpret and understand real meanings and concepts hidden among stakeholders words. Special constraints on syntax or predefined linguistic structures can be used in order to overcome this problem, enabling natural language to well represent and formally define problems and requirements.

The main purpose of natural language modelling is hence to make natural language suitable for conceptual modelling. The focus is on semantic aspects and shared meanings, while syntax is thought in a perspective based on formal logic mapping.

Natural Language Modelling

Rules play a very important role in defining business semantics: they can influence or guide behaviours and support policies, responding to environmental situations and events. This means that rules represent the primary means by which an organization can direct its business, defining the operative way to reach its objectives and perform its actions.

Rule-based approach

The rule-based approach aims to address two different kinds of users: •it addresses business communities, in order to provide them with a structured approach, based on a clear set of concepts and used to access and manage business rules; • it addresses IT professionals, in order to provide them with a deep understanding about business rules and to help them in models creation.

Rule-based approach

“rules build on facts, and facts build on concepts as expressed by terms” (Business Rules Group, Business Rules Manifesto - The Principles of Rule Independence, Nov. 2003)

Fact-orientation

People communicate facts, that is the fact is the atomic unit of communication.

The fact-oriented approach enables multidimensional categorization; The fact-oriented approach supports time changeability; The fact-oriented approach provides semantic stability; The fact-oriented approach enables extensibility and reuse.

5.BML 2.0

An important reason to chose SBVR as linguistic metamodel for BML is represented by the strong matching between their objectives.

BML requirements explicitly assert that it should be a framework enabling business people to represent the business knowledge in a language close to the one they actually use. SBVR is thought in this perspective and it represents a framework aiming to provide linguistic support to business men in order to define the way by which “they run their business in their own language, in terms of the things they deal with in the business” (SBVR RFP).

SBVR as linguistic metamodel for BML

Compliance with MOF

SBVR specification defines a metamodel and allows to instance it, in order to create different vocabularies and to define the related business rules; it is also possible to complete these models with data suitable to describe a specific organization.

the SBVR approach provides means (i.e. mapping rules) to translate natural language artifacts into MOF-compliant artifacts; this allows to exploit all the advantages related to MOF (repository facilities, interchangeability, tools, …), satisfying BML requirements related to its use within a distributed environment.

The first project phase produced a MOF-compliant metamodel that embeds general concepts useful to describe all kinds of business.

In order to introduce SBVR as concrete syntax for BML, it has been necessary to translate this metamodel in accordance with the SBVR syntax.

The output of this complex mapping can be named as BML Vocabulary and Rules.

This translation is realized on the basis of the converse process, clearly explained in SBVR specification, that defines the way to obtain a graphical (UML-based) representation of an SBVR-compliant vocabulary.

Expressing the BML Metamodel using SBVR

BML Vocabulary and Rules define standard terms, facts and rules specializing SBVR meta-concepts. In the same way, BML is used in order to create business models: a modeller specializes BML terms and facts in order to define concepts proper of a given business or domain.

Creating a BML business model

For example, given that business entity, service and their related fact type (business entity provides service) are concepts defined by the BML metamodel, if an ‘Hotel’ and its main service must be modelled it is possible to write:

BML 2.0

BML MODEL

BML METAMODEL

DOMAIN MODEL

GENERIC PACKAGE

<< imports>>

MOF

<< instances>>

Additional package

M1

M2

M3

BML METAMODELSE Vocabulary

DOMAIN MODELvocabulary

GENERIC PACKAGESE Vocabulary

Additional vocabulary

MOF to BSBR Mapping Rules

<< instances>>

<< instances>>

GENERIC PACKAGE Vocabulary BSBR

Vocabulary

BSBR METAMODEL M2

M1

M3MOF

BusinessEntity

Definition: the Concept …

Hotel

Definition: the Organization…

Organization

Definition: the BusinessEntity…

Hotel

Definition: the BusinessEntity…

BUSINESS MODEL Vocabulary

BML METAMODEL Vocabulary

<< imports >>

<< instances >>

DOMAIN MODEL Vocabulary

DOMAIN MODEL Vocabulary

BML 2.0

HOTEL HOTEL ZZ

BML VALIDATOR

MOF CONVERTER

LOGICAL PARSER

HOTEL YHOTEL Y XMI XMI

SchemaSchema

BML BML MetamodelMetamodel

Generic Generic PackagePackage

Hotel Hotel DomainDomain

HOTEL HOTEL XX

XMI Schemas

XMI PRODUCE

R

Structured English Mapping Rules

BSBR to MOF/XMI Mapping

Rules

XMI Production Rules

HOTEL Y Vocabulary

Logical Formulation

HOTEL Y MOF Model

HOTEL Y Vocabulary

& Bus..Rules

HOTEL Y

An example of BML 2.0 business description

BML HOTEL MODELBML HOTEL MODEL

owns

Hotel:BusinessEntity

<<instances>>

Name:Text

hotel is a business entity

hotel is a business entity

Digitalization…Parsing…

hotel owns room

hotel owns room

room is an assetroom is an asset

hotel has a namehotel has a name

BusinessEntity owns Asset

HOTEL Y

Room:Asset

<<instances>>

M2

M1

BML Hotel Model in MOF

BSBR to MOF/XMI Mapping Rules

€

<XMI.content> <Notification xmi.id=‘notif01’> <Notification.EventTypeRepository xmi.id=‘repos1’> <Notification.EventTypeRepository.contents> <Notification.EventType xmi=n4 domain=‘room’/> <Notification.EventType xmi=‘n2’ domain=‘room’/> <Notification.EventType xmi=‘n3’ domain=‘room’/> </Notification.EventTypeRepository.contents> </Notification.EventTypeRepository> </Notification></XMI.content>

XMI DocumentXMI Document

XMI Production Rules

BML MetaModel in MOF

An example of BML 2.0 business description

6.The SBEAVER project

The SBEAVER Project

In order to enable creation of SBVR business models (in terms of business vocabulary and business rules, as explained in the previous section) we developed an open source tool called SBEAVER. It allows to define concepts, fact types and business rules following the SBVR semantics in accordance with the Structured English notation and its mapping to formal logic. SBEAVER is designed primarily for business analysts and modelers working in enterprises, who want to specify business policies and rules precisely and using a non technical notation. Their business view is the enterprise business view, or perhaps a view of part of the business. Nevertheless, mapping to formal logic allows to translate naturallanguage based artifacts into different representation formats (e.g. MOF/XMI, XML or UML). Currently we support automatic generation of XMI XML Schema and Prolog. This feature makes the tool suitable for users such as system engineers, integrators and developers responsible for designing, integrating and implementing IT systems following the business rules and contents provided by business people. Automating transformation of software artifacts from business rules represents basis for validating the system design by business people at the business level of understanding.

The SBEAVER Project

SBEAVER Key Features

Key features:•Business knowledge representation: SBEAVER provides a tool for formalizing the semantics of business knowledge using the Structured English notation.•Portability: SBEAVER is written in Java for portability and could be installed on many different operating systems without code changes. SBEAVER comes with all source code with EPL licence which can be modified or tailored to meet a user’s specific needs.•Integration and Extensibility: SBEAVER is based on Eclipse platform which allows to easily extend or integrate the tool by a user through the use of a well-defined framework.•Model validation: SBEAVER includes a number of features to support the verification and validation of business models including semantic analysis of rule to determine possible inconsistencies.

SBEAVER: Structured English business rules

SBEAVER functional architecture point of view provides:•In particular, from a functional architecture point of view SBEAVER provides:• Presentation and user modification of SBVR Structured English business vocabularies and business rules.• Standard text editing operations (cut, copy, paste, find, replace).• Automatic syntax highlighting following the SBVR Structured English font styles.• Content assist to allow easy and fast creation of contents.• Hierarchical navigation of vocabulary,• Dictionary (at present we embed WordNet dictionary) support for synonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, definitions.• Mapping from in-memory Java representation to logical representation.• XMI XML Schema serialization allowing interchangeability of models between software tools.

SBEAVER functional architecture

The SBEAVER tool

The SBEAVER project

•SBEAVER generates automatically XSD Schemas

7.Future agenda

Research Agenda

• Formal languages for e-business based on natural language (evolution of SBVR structured English toward e-business);

• Tools (editors, parsers, tunable transformation tools, validators) based on natural language modelling paradigm and supporting formal logic;

• Distributed MOF repositories for Business knowledge representation (supporting natural language, structured English, MOF and XMI representation);

• Query languages search engines, and knowledge discovery systems based on structured English and natural language;

• Ontology to SBVR mapping systems;

• Computation Independent Business Models to Platform Independent Service Models transformations.

Thank you