HLA/RTI-Based BPM Middleware for Collaborative Business Process Management

Business processes in global economy need closer collaboration with partner enterprises and there is a growing need for BPM systems to support collaborative business processes. Previous researches on collaborative BPM have some shortcomings and there remains a gap between the demand and supply for collaborative BPM. This paper presents a mediator-based collaborative BPM (CBPM) framework together with a CBPM middleware implementing the CBPM framework. The CBPM middleware is built around the HLA/RTI (high level architecture/run time infrastructure) which is the de facto standard in modeling & simulation. Distinctive features of the proposed CBPM middleware include (1) it covers all workflow interoperability models specified by Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), (2) it has a hub architecture allowing scalability and generality, (3) all interoperation messages are handled by a set of standard APIs of WfMC and of HLA/RTI so that anyone who is familiar with those APIs can easily implement the middleware.