An XML-based active rule support for fast reconfiguration of business process

Abstract

The paradigm for active rule processing based on Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules has been diversified to adopt XML in describing the events and active rules for various Internet services. Most of researches in this track support limited services, such as managing XML documents, pushing reactive services, and personalizing Web views. Due to the insufficient expressive power of those XML-based active rule languages, it is difficult to materialize general business processes for e-businesses. In this thesis, we propose an XML-based active rule markup language (ARML) designed to describe business processes with the object-oriented paradigm. Since ARML decouples the business processes from application programs in the form of XML documents, it enables a business application to reconfigure business processes immediately even though business policies and constraints change frequently. It also enables non-technical business managers to create and update business processes with their own domain expertise using the ARML and triggering rule graphs. Without the need for programming techniques, it may remarkably reduce the maintenance cost and time consumption to reconfigure business processes. We report our major contributions under the following subjects: (1) a design and implementation of an XML-based active rule markup language for business processes, (2) an architecture of active rule system integrating with business applications for fast reconfiguration of business processes, and (3) a graphical user interface (GUI) which assists non-techical business managers to define business processes without the knowledge of programming techniques. The research is conducted as the partial development for the Active Information Management System (AIMS) project at the Database Systems Laboratory, Information and Communications University.