Grounded Business Process Model Derivation via Infrastructure Templates
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods struggle to efficiently model and manage the complex reconfigurability of modern computer infrastructures, leading to difficulties in deploying and managing business processes due to the complexity of recursive relationships between virtual and physical components, resulting in low resource utilization and high computational intractability.
Innovation Solution
A method is introduced to derive a grounded model of a business process from an unbound model using an infrastructure design template, reducing the number of options and simplifying the complexity of generating a deployable model, enabling more efficient and automated deployment and management of business processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If the full reconfigurability of virtual and physical infrastructure components is modeled, then the completeness and accuracy of the business process deployment model is improved, but the model complexity becomes extremely high and computationally intractable
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the infrastructure model into multiple hierarchical levels (physical infrastructure layer, virtualization layer, and business process layer). Each level is modeled separately with its own entities and relationships, avoiding the need to represent all possible virtual-to-physical mappings explicitly. This segmentation reduces model complexity while preserving the essential reconfigurability characteristics at each level.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements nested modeling where virtual infrastructure entities are contained within physical infrastructure contexts, and business process entities are contained within virtual infrastructure contexts. This nesting allows the model to represent hierarchical relationships without creating explicit connections between all elements across levels, thereby reducing overall model complexity while maintaining completeness.
2Productivity
If automated tools are used to select appropriate infrastructure configurations from many possibilities, then deployment efficiency is improved, but the computational complexity increases and becomes intractable due to the large solution space
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the configuration selection problem from searching through all possible virtual-to-physical mappings to selecting from predefined infrastructure templates with parameterized configurations. By changing the representation from explicit mappings to template parameters, the solution space becomes manageable while still allowing automated selection of appropriate configurations based on business process requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-defining infrastructure templates that encapsulate common virtualization configurations and resource allocation patterns. These templates are prepared in advance with standardized structures and relationships, so that during deployment, automated tools only need to select and parameterize appropriate templates rather than constructing configurations from scratch, significantly reducing computational complexity.
3Device complexity
If infrastructure design templates with predetermined parts and limited options are used, then the complexity of generating deployable models is reduced, but the flexibility and adaptability of the infrastructure design is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent designs infrastructure templates with universal structures that can serve multiple purposes and accommodate different business process requirements. The templates include parameterized elements that can be customized to match various deployment scenarios, allowing the same template framework to support diverse infrastructure configurations while maintaining manageable complexity through standardized patterns.
Data Source
AI summary
A business process (15) having a number of computer implemented steps using software application components, to enable automatic deployment on computing infrastructure, is modelled by a management system. It automatically derives a grounded model (55) of the business process from an unbound model (25) of the business process, based on an infrastructure design template (35). The unbound model specifies the application components to be used, and the grounded model adds a complete design of the computing infrastructure to be used. The use of an infrastructure design template can reduce the large number of options to be evaluated to help reduce the complexity of generating or changing the grounded model. The infrastructure design template formally relates the business process, application components and infrastructure design so that designs, or changes which are inconsistent or inefficient can be avoided. Thus more automation of the designing and changing the design is feasible.