79

Enterprise Architecture Modeling with SoaML Using BMM and BPMN –

MDA Approach in Practice
Andrey Sadovykh, Brian Elvesæter, Einar Landre
Philippe Desfray Arne-Jørgen Berre
SOFTEAM, 21 Avenue Victor SINTEF ICT, P.O. Box 124 Statoil ASA
Hugo, 76016 Paris, France Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway Forusbeen 50, N-4035
email: {andrey.sadovykh, email: {brian.elvesater, Stavanger, Norway
philippe.desfray}@softeam.fr arne.j.berre}@sintef.no email: [email protected]

Abstract
The Service oriented architecture Modeling Language (SoaML) is a new specification from the Object
Management Group (OMG) that intends to bridge the gap between business and IT models. Nevertheless, the
specification is very vague on the methodology aspects and practical means for integration with OMG business
level languages – Business Motivation Model (BMM) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN).
SHAPE FP7 EU project addressed these issues by means of a dedicated Model Driven Architecture (MDA)
based methodology and tool support. The results were validated with industrial case studies by Statoil and
Saarstahl.
In this paper we focus on our experience with SoaML obtained with Statoil case study, briefly describe the
developed Model Driven Architecture (MDA) based methodology for modeling enterprise architectures with
BMM, BPMN and SoaML, which we illustrate with a “Discount Voyages” example. Finally, we present Statoil
case study and outline the future research directions.

Keywords: Enterprise Architecture; SoaML; BMM; BPMN; MDA.

Моделирование корпоративных архитектур с помощью SoaML

используя BMM и BPMN – применение концепции MDA
Андрей Садовых, Браян Элвесатер, Эйнар Ландре
Филипп Дефрэ Арне Берре
SOFTEAM, 21 Avenue Victor SINTEF ICT, P.O. Box 124 Statoil ASA
Hugo, 76016 Paris, France Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway Forusbeen 50, N-4035
email: {andrey.sadovykh, email: {brian.elvesater, Stavanger, Norway
philippe.desfray}@softeam.fr arne.j.berre}@sintef.no email: [email protected]

Аннотация
Язык моделирования сервисно-орентированных архитектур (SoaML) это новая спецификация от
Object Management Group (OMG), которая предназначена помочь преодолеть разрыв между бизнес и IT
моделями. Вместе с тем, эта спецификация достаточно неопределенно описывает методические
аспекты и практические средства для интеграции с языками бизнес моделирования от OMG – BMM и
BPMN. Чтобы решить эту проблему, европейский исследовательский проект SHAPE разработал
специализировные методы основанные на MDA, а так же адаптированную среду разработки.
Результаты были оценены с помощь анализа реальных примеров предоставленных компаниями Statoil и
Saarstahl.
В этой статье приводятся опытные результаты полученые в ходе моделирования корпоративных
архитектур компании Statoil, описываются разработанные методы, которые проиллюcтрированны с
помощью примера «Discount Voyages». В завершении дается краткое описание опытной задачи от
Statoil, а так же указывается направление будущих исследований.

Ключевые слова: корпоративная архитектура; SoaML; BMM; BPMN; MDA.

978-1-4577-0606-6/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE

 80

1. Introduction 2. SoaML overview and analysis

The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) The SoaML specification [1] defines a UML
paradigm has gained a great popularity by promising profile and metamodel for the SOA design. SoaML
to bridge the business and IT worlds in the context of extends UML to support the range of modeling
Enterprise Architectures. Indeed, SOA relies on requirements for SOA, including the specification of
concepts of services, contracts, processes, systems of services, individual service interfaces,
choreographies and orchestrations. All of these are and service implementations. SoaML also provides a
close to business domain specialists and allow them capability for connecting to OMG Business
to comprehensively describe business-critical Motivation Model (BMM) [5] models to capture how
functionalities of enterprise IT systems. From an IT services solutions realize business motivation, i.e.
specialist point of view, the SOA technologies are an business goals.
efficient way to cope with integration and SoaML extends UML in six main areas:
interoperability problems through multiple participants, service contracts, services architectures,
implementations available for different platforms. service interfaces, service data and capabilities.
Although SOA concepts, business models and Participants are used to define the service
service technologies have been a hot topic for several providers and consumers in a system. When a
years, the alignment of the business requirements participant acts as a provider it contains service
and IT system implementations still remains one of ports, and when a participant acts as a consumer it
the major challenges for enterprise IT systems. contains request ports.
In order to provide a solution for the above Service interfaces are used to describe the
mentioned problem, the Object Management Group operations provided and required to complete the
(OMG) initiated the Service oriented architecture functionality of a service. A service interface can be
Modeling Language (SoaML) specification [1], used as the protocol for a service port or a request
which aims at providing a common modeling port.
language to business and system architects. This Service contracts are used to describe interaction
language, based on the OMG Unified Modeling patterns between service entities. A service contract
Language (UML), should enable business and is used to model an agreement between two or more
system architects with a better control on the IT parties. Each service role in a service contract has an
system implementation. Although the specification is interface that usually represents a provider or a
being currently finished, it still has certain lacks in consumer.
describing methods for modeling with SoaML and Services architectures are used to define how a
integration with business models. set of participants works together for some purpose
SHAPE (Semantically-enabled Heterogeneous by providing and using services. A services
Service Architecture and Platforms Engineering) architecture describes how participants work
(ICT-2007-216408) was a European Research together by providing and using services expressed
Project that developed an infrastructure for Model- as service contracts.
Driven Engineering of SOA with support for various Service data are used to describe service
technology platforms [2]. SHAPE has developed messages and message attachments. The message
SoaML-based tools and methods and evaluated these type is used to specify the information exchanged
technologies in industrial case studies. The between service consumers and providers. An
developed SoaML-based technologies should help in attachment is a part of a message that is attached to
designing and implementing enterprise IT systems rather than contained in the message.
from business models down to technical design and Capabilities represent an abstraction of the ability
implementations for different platforms such as Web to affect change. Capabilities identify or specify a
Services, Multi-Agent Systems and Semantic Web cohesive set of functions or resources that a service
Services. The obtained results include open source provided by one or more participants might offer.
extensions to Modelio CASE Tool [3], the While developing methods and tools for SoaML
methodology [2] and the SoaML tutorial [4]. modeling and trying to implement the case studies
The authors were deeply involved in the we discovered several issues that we are briefly
development of SoaML modeling tools, methods, presenting below. Most of the issues concern
and proof-of-concept implementations in the inconsistencies and ambiguity in concepts definition.
industrial case studies. This paper presents our This may lead to a general misunderstanding, since
experience of SoaML by providing brief description the specification proposes several alternative ways
of the developed MDA-based methodology, practical for expressing the same architecture but using
guidelines illustrated with a simple but representative different concepts.
example and an industrial case study. Unclear and inconsistent language concepts:
For instance, the notion of capability in the
 81

specification seems to be ambiguous. According to SoaML participants could be reused to type the
the SoaML specification the concept of capability is pools in BPMN processes.
used both on a business-level to specify a high-level The authors were involved in development of the
abstract service and at the IT-level. This suggests SoaML Designer and SoaML Engine open source
that there are two distinct concepts that have been extension for Modelio. These extensions are
merged into a single notion. available at [4]. SoaML Engine provides
Unnecessary complex concepts: For instance, a transformations from SoaML to Web Services and
service interface should normally realize a provider JEE were implemented and integrated into the tool.
and should use a consumer, while a conjugate These tools were used to create SoaML models and
service interface has to do the opposite. At the transform them into IT systems implementations in
meantime, “use” and “realize” relationships Discount Voyages and SHAPE project industrial
undoubtedly identify what should be consumed and case studies.
what should be provided, while service and request In the next section the practical methodology is
ports clearly indicate the value-providing described.
participants. Thus there is no need for extra concepts
such as consumer and provider which may mislead 4. MDA for Enterprise Architecture
readers. modeling
Different approaches for specifying services:
SoaML supports both a contract and an interface Model Driven Architecture (MDA) [7] is
based approach to SOA. It is unclear how to use and proposed by OMG as a prominent software
combine these approaches. Furthermore, combining engineering approach, which places the model in the
them may also lead to duplicate modeling effort, in center of the development process. The model is
particular with respect to the specification of the used at all the stages from goals and requirements
behavioral parts, e.g. the service choreographies. specification down to analysis, design,
Further in this paper we propose modeling implementation, testing and modernization. During
guidelines so that the language constructs can be the development cycle the model passes several
used in a consistent manner, as this is not evident levels: Computation Independent Model (CIM) e.g.
from reading the specification alone. business models, Platform Independent Model (PIM)
e.g. analysis models and Platform Specific Model
3. Discount Voyages example and tools e.g. design models and the code. The transitions
between these levels are ensured by means of manual
In order to illustrate the methodology we first model refinements and automated model
provide a description of a simple but representative transformations, i.e. model-to-model and model-to-
example covered in our SoaML tutorial [4]. text. Dedicated UML Profiles are used to cover
The example represents a Discount Voyages necessary aspects at each level to cover specific
company that resells discounted travel packages that modeling aspects and to provide means for model
are obtained by negotiating with 3rd party travel transformations, automated verification and
agencies. The Discount Voyages communicates with simulation as well as test, documentation and code
a client, partner travel agencies and a banking generation.
service. Clients browse Discount Voyages web-site MDA switches the focus from the coding to
to find suitable travel packages and to place orders modeling. In MDA the design phase requires more
by providing credit card details. The Discount efforts, since creation of formal and “executable”
Voyages checks the travel package availability at a models is required. However coding, documentation,
relevant partner agency, checks the client solvency testing and maintenance take significantly less
and withdraws the package price using the banking efforts due to high quality of the design models and
service. Finally the client is notified and a bill is sent. possibility to automatically generate the code and the
This example was implemented with Modelio other artifacts. These results have been proved in
CASE Tool [3] by SOFTEAM. This tool provides a different case studies and the technology is
central repository for models allowing integration of successfully applied in industry [8] and [9].
model parts in different languages. In the Discount Applying MDA we distinguish Business
Voyages example we modeled Dictionaries, Goals, Architecture Model (BAM), System Architecture
Business Rules and Requirements and used BPMN, Model (SAM) and Implementation levels in SOA for
SoaML and specific UML Profiles for Web Services Enterprise systems, which correspond respectively to
and JEE. Having the whole set of models in the same CIM, PIM and PSM in MDA terminology. Figure 1
repository helped to establish traceability links and depicts the separation and parts of the SoaML and
cross-reference model elements. For example, the other languages at different levels. It also suggests
traceability links were established between goals, different roles to be involved: Business Architect at
SoaML elements and processes in BPMN. The the BAM level, System Architect at the SAM level
and System Developer at the Implementation level.
 82

implementation models have to be refined by a

System Developer.
In addition to conventional Web Services and
Persistency, the SHAPE project developed
transformations from SoaML to Multi-Agent
Systems (Jack and Jade platforms) and to Semantic
Web Services with WSMO [2].
Although main focus of this paper is SoaML
experience and guidelines, we would like to first take
a short stop at the Business Scope modeling and
traceability in order to address the relation between
SoaML and BMM, which was identified as an issue
in the beginning of this paper.

4.1. Business Scope modeling and

traceability

Modelio CASE Tool provides a possibility to

extract the dictionaries, goals, business rules and
requirements from MS Word documents. Business
Architects can manually annotate the parts of the text
Figure 1 Enterprise Architecture modeling – MDA to be exported to Modelio as Business Scope
levels elements as it was done for the Discount Voyages
example.
At the BAM level we start with the Business As soon as a draft list of elements is obtained,
Scope modeling, which includes Goals modeling they can be categorized, detailed and refined by
with BMM, Requirements with a SysML UML adding relations between them (e.g. “part of”,
Profile [10] but also Dictionaries and Business “positive influence”, “guarantees”, “refines”, etc.).
Rules. From these models a Business Architect can These relations are defined in BMM and SysML
derive Information Semantics – a subset of UML standards, which are not covered in this paper.
class models – describing the information concepts For the traceability with lower level models links
shared within the company, e.g. Travel, Client, Order like “assigned” should be used. Figure 2 illustrates
information definitions for the Discount Voyages the goal modeling. The “Internet Access” and the
example. This model is used later to define the data “Cash-flow management” goals are parts of the
flows between tasks and participants as well as to “Financial Optimization” goal. “Internet Access” has
derive a persistency model. Business processes are a positive influence on the “Maximize personnel
specified with BPMN to address the business goals, productivity” goal.
implement the rules and satisfy the requirements.
SoaML capabilities can be used to define business
level functionalities, while service contracts,
choreographies and services architecture can be used
to define high-level composition of participants and
communication channels.
At the SAM level, it is suggested for a System
Architect to concentrate on SoaML service
interfaces, message types, choreographies,
participants definitions including orchestrations and
participants assemblies using request and service
ports.
The implementation models skeletons can be
generated from the SAM SoaML models. In our
research project we covered generation of Web
Services with XML schemas (XSD), Web Service
Definition Language (WSDL) and annotated Java
interfaces as well as Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) scripts generation. Data
persistency models were automatically derived from Figure 2 Goals modeling and traceability
the Information Semantics model. This initial
 83

Goals can be defined using customizable

parameters as it is shown for the “Financial
Optimization”.
The traceability is illustrated with an assignment
of the “Web-Site” SoaML participant to “Internet
Access” goal. In addition to that Modelio proposes a
“traceability” link – a general purpose dependency
that can link any two model elements.

4.2. SoaML in BAM and SAM

In our methodology SoaML is used on both the

BAM and SAM levels. On the BAM level, the
business oriented concepts are used – business
processes, participants, service contracts and
services architectures. At the SAM level the focus is
progressively moved to IT perspective concepts –
service interfaces, software components modeled as
participants, their behavior modeling for
orchestrations and choreographies and assembly.
On the BAM level, one of the major input to start
SoaML modeling is business processes. At the Figure 4 Excerpt of detailed business process for
highest level of abstraction these processes are rather Discount Voyages company
business domain dependent, e.g. travel reservation
process is common for the most of travel agencies. A participant may also have an internal
These processes need to be mapped to participants in participant services architecture, which specifies how
order to identify the roles in the processes. The parts of that participant (e.g., units within an
processes can be further refined by introducing organization) work together to provide the services
company internal participants and sub-processes. of the owning participant. Participants that realize
From this point, service contracts and services this specification must adhere to the architecture it
architectures can be identified. specifies. The services architecture and service
Figure 3 and Figure 4 depict Discount Voyages contracts can be derived from the pools or lanes and
business processes – one for the business domain and activities in the business processes respectively
the other after a refinement and mapping to following these guidelines:
participants.  Identify public and collaborative business
As it was mentioned before, the language processes that involve interactions and potential
constructs from SoaML that are most suitable at the usage of software services between different
business level are participant, services architecture, business organizations. These processes are
service contracts and capability. candidates for public community-level services
A services architecture has components at two architectures in SoaML that describe the service
levels of granularity: The community services contracts between the business organizations, c.f.
architecture is a ”top level” view of how independent Client and Travel Agency pools in Figure 4.
participants work together for some purpose. The  Identify private business processes for the business
services architecture of a community does not entities under your ownership control that are
assume or require any one controlling entity or involved in the services architecture under
process. consideration. These processes are candidates for
private participant-level services architectures in
SoaML that describe the service contracts between
the internal organizational roles or units within the
business organization, c.f. Web-Site, Travel
Catalogue and Order Management swim lanes in
Figure 4.
 Focus on the tasks that describe the interaction
points between the business entities. These
interaction points will be associated with service
contracts in SoaML, c.f. message and control flows
Figure 3 Excerpt of business process for travel between tasks and data objects in Figure 4, which
agency domain
 84

may later be associated with message types or data

entities in SoaML.
An example of applying these guidelines is
illustrated below. The pools from Figure 4 are
mapped to participants in a community-level
services architecture c.f. the Client and the Travel
Agency participants. After applying the guidelines
one may obtain the services architecture for Travel
Reservation depicted in Figure 5. The
communications between the BPMN pools, i.e. a
search for a destination and order initiation are
translated into the service contracts, i.e. Figure 5. Derived Travel Reservation services
TravelInformation and TravelOrder. The services architecture
architecture specifies interconnection between the
participants using the service contracts, i.e. Client
and TravelAgency participants are connected by
implementing TravelInformation and TravelOrder
service contracts.
For the IT perspective, at the System Architecture
Model level the language constructs from SoaML
that are most suitable are service interface, its
behavior (i.e. service choreography and
orchestrations), message type, components (i.e.
participants) and service and request ports. The Figure 6 Excerpt of component assembly
component model focuses on specifying the involved specification
software components that realizes the specified
services architecture, either for a community or a 4.3. Towards implementation platforms
participant. Once the components are defined a
composite structure is used to show how The SHAPE project developed transformations
implementations of these components form an from the SoaML SAM to various platforms including
assembly of a composite service-oriented application Web Services, Multi-Agent Systems and Semantic
following these guidelines: Web Services platforms.
 For each participant in the community services Authors were involved in development of
architecture you may define a SoaML participant transformations to conventional Web Services, Java
or a set of participants which represents a software Persistency and SQL with the Modelio CASE tool.
system that realizes the service contracts specified The SoaML message types referencing the
for the business organizations (specified as SoaML Information Semantics were transformed to XSDs,
participants) in BAM. service interfaces to WSDLs. For transformations to
 Based on the private services architecture that you BPEL we developed a specific UML Profile that
have defined for the participant, you specify the enabled specifying participants’ behavior using
internal components of the software component. BPMN and enriching it with links to service
The software components are connected through interfaces. This permitted to specify service
the service interfaces that you have already invocations using BPMN tasks. Thus we could
defined. achieve that the obtained BPEL model integrated
 After the private component architectures have generated XSDs and WSDLs and implemented the
been defined, you are able to assemble the control flow representing service invocations
component architecture that realizes the specified at the SAM level. However, it should be
community services architecture using the public noted that the resulting BPEL has to be refined to
interfaces as defined by the components and add data flow operations, since BPMN does not
connect these using service channels. cover operations with data. Moreover, from our
An example of applying these guidelines is experience, the BPEL script has to be adapted taking
illustrated in Figure 6 below. Here the participants of into account peculiarities of a targeted BPEL
the community-level services architecture (from execution engine. Nevertheless, within the industrial
Figure 5) have been mapped to corresponding case studies we proved the productivity gains with
participants or components that are connected this approach, since up to 90% of code were
through their service and request ports. The ports are generated from a higher abstraction level models.
typed by service interfaces which specify the
provider and consumer interfaces.
 85

5. Statoil case study 2.0 and SoaML, which is to appear in future BPMN
versions. In addition, the authors intend to extend the
The SoaML technologies developed in the SoaML applicability to the service clouds domain by
SHAPE project were tested, demonstrated, and participating in PIM4Cloud/CloudML OMG
evaluated in industrial use cases. Statoil, one of the working group. These research topics will be further
use case partners in SHAPE, is an integrated developed in the REMICS (ICT-2010-257793) EU
technology-based international energy company research project started in September 2010.
primarily focused on upstream oil and gas Acknowledgments. This research was co-
operations. The Statoil use case was defined as part funded by the European Union in the frame of the
of their Production and Process Optimization (PPO) SHAPE FP7 project (ICT-2007-216408). The
project [11]. PPO is concerned with improved authors would like to express their acknowledgments
reservoir management and production optimization. to SHAPE colleagues.
The aim is to provide an integrated solution for
optimizing the reservoir performance, intelligent 7. References
wells and production processes among the numerous
offshore production sites. [1] OMG, "Service oriented architecture Modeling
Statoil has a long tradition of modeling work Language (SoaML), FTF Beta 2", December 2009.
processes. Attempts at using these process models http://www.omg.org/spec/SoaML/1.0/Beta2/PDF/
for IT development has proved difficult and there is a
[2] M. Stollberg (ed.), "SHAPE Project Whitepaper",
gap between the business modeling side and IT SHAPE STREP, 9 June 2009. http://www.shape-
development side. Thus, there is a need for improved project.eu/
business and IT modeling practices to ensure better
alignment between business requirements and IT [3] Modelio CASE Tool web-site, http://modeliosoft.com
solutions at Statoil. In the SHAPE project Statoil
investigated how to improve the business and IT [4] SoaML Tutorial and Prototypes, SOFTEAM R&D
modeling practices by applying SoaML-based web-site, http://rd.softeam.com/demos/soaml/
modeling technologies. The PPO process was used to
illustrate the modeling practices. [5] OMG, “Business Motivation Model (BMM), Version
This case study allowed to evaluate SoaML 1.1”, May 2010, http://www.omg.org/spec/BMM/1.1/
applicability and to develop the practical
methodology presented above. All the steps of the [6] OMG, “Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN),
Version 1.2”, January 2009,
methodology were followed from BAM via SAM http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/1.2/
down to Implementation in Web Services and Java.
The methodology and tools proved to be viable and [7] J. Arlow, I. Neustadt, Enterprise Patterns and MDA :
helped business domain specialists and IT specialists Building Better Software with Archetype Patterns and
to align business models and IT systems UML, Pearson Education, January 2004, ISBN:
implementation. 032111230X

6. Conclusions and future research [8] M. Guttman, J. Parodi, Real-Life MDA: Solving
Business Problems with Model Driven Architecture,
directions Morgan Kaufmann, 2006, ISBN-10: 0123705924

In this paper we presented our practical [9] M. Staron, “Adopting Model Driven Software
experience with SoaML in attempt to align business Development in Industry – A Case Study at Two
models and enterprise IT systems implementation. Companies”, Proc. of MODELS 2006, Genova, Italy,
SoaML is a new specification by OMG defining October 2006, pp. 57-72
SOA concepts that are to be used to model enterprise
architectures. We outlined several inconsistencies [10] OMG, “System Modeling Language (SysML),
and lacks in the current specification and proposed Version 1.2”, June 2010,
an MDA based methodology aligning SoaML, BMM http://www.omg.org/spec/SysML/1.2/
and BPMN. The methodology was illustrated with a
[11] J. R. Sagli, H. E. Klumpen, G. Nunez, and F.
“Discount Voyages” example. Finally, we presented Nielsen, "Improved Production and Process Optimization
an industrial case study that was fulfilled in order to Through People, Technology, and Process", in Proc. of the
evaluate the SoaML and develop the above- SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition,
mentioned methodology. Anaheim, California, USA, 2007, Society of Petroleum
For the future research activities, the authors are Engineers
actively involved in the alignment between BPMN