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Responsible Composition and Optimization of Integration Processes under Correctness Preserving Guarantees

Daniel Ritter, Fredrik Nordvall Forsberg, Stefanie Rinderle-Ma

TL;DR

This work tackles trustworthy integration of heterogeneous applications by ensuring structurally correct composition of integration patterns and correctness-preserving optimizations. It introduces ReCO, a process that combines pattern graphs with contracts and a semantics based on open timed DB-nets to guarantee both structural and semantic correctness during optimization. The authors develop a graph rewriting framework with an abstract cost model to realize and prove correctness of various optimization strategies, and validate them on over 900 real-world integration processes plus two case studies. The results demonstrate practical potential for automatic, correctness-preserving improvements in enterprise integration scenarios, while also highlighting trade-offs between latency, throughput, and model complexity. The work also outlines future directions for tool support and automatic translation from higher-level modeling languages to IPCGs and timed DB-nets.

Abstract

Enterprise Application Integration deals with the problem of connecting heterogeneous applications, and is the centerpiece of current on-premise, cloud and device integration scenarios. For integration scenarios, structurally correct composition of patterns into processes and improvements of integration processes are crucial. In order to achieve this, we formalize compositions of integration patterns based on their characteristics, and describe optimization strategies that help to reduce the model complexity, and improve the process execution efficiency using design time techniques. Using the formalism of timed DB-nets - a refinement of Petri nets - we model integration logic features such as control- and data flow, transactional data storage, compensation and exception handling, and time aspects that are present in reoccurring solutions as separate integration patterns. We then propose a realization of optimization strategies using graph rewriting, and prove that the optimizations we consider preserve both structural and functional correctness. We evaluate the improvements on a real-world catalog of pattern compositions, containing over 900 integration processes, and illustrate the correctness properties in case studies based on two of these processes.

Responsible Composition and Optimization of Integration Processes under Correctness Preserving Guarantees

TL;DR

This work tackles trustworthy integration of heterogeneous applications by ensuring structurally correct composition of integration patterns and correctness-preserving optimizations. It introduces ReCO, a process that combines pattern graphs with contracts and a semantics based on open timed DB-nets to guarantee both structural and semantic correctness during optimization. The authors develop a graph rewriting framework with an abstract cost model to realize and prove correctness of various optimization strategies, and validate them on over 900 real-world integration processes plus two case studies. The results demonstrate practical potential for automatic, correctness-preserving improvements in enterprise integration scenarios, while also highlighting trade-offs between latency, throughput, and model complexity. The work also outlines future directions for tool support and automatic translation from higher-level modeling languages to IPCGs and timed DB-nets.

Abstract

Enterprise Application Integration deals with the problem of connecting heterogeneous applications, and is the centerpiece of current on-premise, cloud and device integration scenarios. For integration scenarios, structurally correct composition of patterns into processes and improvements of integration processes are crucial. In order to achieve this, we formalize compositions of integration patterns based on their characteristics, and describe optimization strategies that help to reduce the model complexity, and improve the process execution efficiency using design time techniques. Using the formalism of timed DB-nets - a refinement of Petri nets - we model integration logic features such as control- and data flow, transactional data storage, compensation and exception handling, and time aspects that are present in reoccurring solutions as separate integration patterns. We then propose a realization of optimization strategies using graph rewriting, and prove that the optimizations we consider preserve both structural and functional correctness. We evaluate the improvements on a real-world catalog of pattern compositions, containing over 900 integration processes, and illustrate the correctness properties in case studies based on two of these processes.
Paper Structure (88 sections, 5 theorems, 31 equations, 41 figures, 5 tables)

This paper contains 88 sections, 5 theorems, 31 equations, 41 figures, 5 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Methodology
  3. Outline
  4. History of this paper
  5. Responsible Composition and Optimization Process for Patterns
  6. Responsible Composition and Optimization Process
  7. Potential Process Optimization by Example
  8. Background and Requirements
  9. Integration Pattern Characteristics
  10. Ubiquitous Characteristics
  11. Channel Cardinality
  12. Message cardinality
  13. Optional Characteristics
  14. Message Generating
  15. Changing Message Content
  16. ...and 73 more sections

Key Result

Lemma 1

For any open timed db-nets $N$, $M$, $K$ with compatible boundaries, we have $N \fatsemi (M \fatsemi K) = (N \fatsemi M) \fatsemi K$, and for each boundary configuration $\vec{c} = [c_1, \ldots, c_n]$, there is an identity net $\mathsf{id}_{\vec{c}} : [c_1, \ldots, c_n] \to [c_1, \ldots, c_n]$ such

Figures (41)

  • Figure 1: End-to-end perspective from integration process modeling to verifiable execution semantics and automatic, correctness-preserving improvements (current gaps or missing aspects in red color).
  • Figure 2: Responsible pattern composition and optimization process (white colored boxes denote the main steps, grey colored box shows the pattern formalization process from RITTER2019101439, to which we bridge through translation of single patterns and compositions)
  • Figure 3: Replicate material from SAP Business Suite (a hybrid integration scenario in BPMN)
  • Figure 4: Categorizing integration pattern characteristics according to control and data flow
  • Figure 5: Channel and message cardinalities ("zero-to-one" includes "one-to-zero")
  • ...and 36 more figures

Theorems & Definitions (29)

  • Definition 1: Integration pattern type graph
  • Definition 2: Pattern characteristics
  • Example 1
  • Definition 3: Pattern contract
  • Example 2
  • Definition 4
  • Definition 5
  • Example 3
  • Definition 6: Cost model
  • Example 4
  • ...and 19 more