Execution Environment #

The Execution Engine takes a Cloudlet as an input and generates a Cloudlet deployment, i.e. a Business Process as a Service from it. This requires that a BPM engine be deployed for this Cloudlet as well as all self-hosted services be deployed. For doing so, the Execution Environment picks one or multiple cloud providers for both BPM engine and self-hosted services; it also selects the cloud offering to use, i.e., a  Virtual Machine with 2 cores and 4096 MB of RAM, for hosting BPM engine and self-hosted service.

In addition, the Execution Environment has to increase the resources for a business process when load increases and/or SLAs are violated. For that purpose the process has to be monitored. 

Web Workspace #

The Web Workspace provides an interface for BPaaS Provider where they can load Cloudlets and hence deploy BPM Engines for individual business processes. BPaaS Providers can also use this interface in order to get access to the monitoring data of the business processes and finally have access to the SLA parameters.

For Business Process Users, it provides an entry point to unlock a business process for its company and to enable end users using it. Business Process Users can also monitor the instances of its unlocked Business Processes. 

BPaaS Middleware #

The BPaaS Middleware is a collection tools in order to support the cloud characteristics of the Business Process deployment. 

Process Monitoring #

The process monitoring retrieves monitoring values from the external services a Business Process is bound to, from the BPaaS deployment, and other metrics that are considered interesting in order to derive the quality of service currently experienced. 

BPaaS Orchestrator #

The BPaaS Orchestrator is a BPM Engine enhanced by a Quality Manager, a Rule Engine, and a Process Mediator.

BPaaS Quality Manager #

The quality manager considers the monitoring data and derives higher order values for comparing them against SLA guarantees given towards the user. 

Self-adaptive Rule Engine #

The rule engine matches patterns agains monitored values and adapts Business Process deployment according to them. In addition, the rule engine adapts itself to new situations and deployment settings.

Process Data Mediator #

The Process Data Mediator takes care of mediating data formats output by one invoked service such that it can be used as input for the next service invocation. 

BPaaS Deployment Stack #

The BPassS Deployment Stack consists of all tools required to deploy a Business Process and their respective configuration.

Cloud Services #

In the scope of CloudSocket, a Cloud Service comprises all external services that can either be directly linked to business processes or those services that can be used to deploy self-hosted services or parts of the Cloud Orchestrator.

DevOps Automation #

DevOps Automators are tools that allow an automatic deployment of BPM engine and self-hosted services acorss mulitple clouds in a widely automatic manner. It further provides mechanisms to adapt the deployment by scaling up/out individual application components.