Retrofitting of Workflow Management Systems with Self-X Capabilities for Internet of Things

摘要

The Internet of Things (IoT) introduces various new challenges for business process technologies and workflow management systems (WfMS's) to be used for managing IoT processes. Especially the interactions with the physical world lead to the emergence of new error sources and unanticipated situations that require a self-adaptive WfMS able to react dynamically to unforeseen situations. Despite a large number of existing WfMS's, only few systems feature self-x capabilities to be used in the dynamic context of IoT. We present a retrofitting process and generic software component based on the MAPE-K feedback loop to add autonomous capabilities to existing WfMS's. Using a smart home example process, we show how to retrofit different WfMS's in an invasive and non-invasive way. Experiments and a brief discussion confirm the feasibility of our retrofitting processes and software component to add self-x capabilities to service-oriented WfMS's in an IoT context.