

OOPSLA Home Page
OOPSLA'97 Business Object Workshop
Business Object Design and Implementation III: Patterns,
Workflow, Components, and the Web
Updated 20 October 1998
Proceedure for getting your paper into publication of OOPSLA'96 and OOPSLA'97
Business Object Workshop Proceedings by Springer-Verlag:
-
Papers from both years workshops will be published in a single volume.
Send a note to jeff.sutherland@computer.org
confirming that you intend to submit your paper for review and comment.
-
Deadline 1 December 1997 for submission of camera ready copy and publishing
agreement.
-
See the book below for an example of the finished product.
Sutherland J., D. Patel, C.
Casanave, G. Hollowell and J. Miller (Eds). Business
Object Design and Implementation: OOPSLA'95 Workshop Proceedings.
Springer, 1997.
Position Papers
Session 1 - Domain
Modeling
Session 2 - Workflow
Issues
Session 3 - Enterprise
Architectures
Session 4 - Business
Objects
Papers not presented
The implacable Spottiswoode provides a sumptuous "roast" of the OMG Object
Management Architecture and recent Business Object Facility RFP submissions
and some choice "tidbits" as an "appetizer" for his mysterious, shamelessly
promoted MACK implementation, not to mention some penetrating dinner conversation
about the esoterics of typing, inheritance, workflow, and the always prime
suspect - the classical object model.
The critique is set in allegorical style at a "Grand BOF Banquet" with
the following illustrious cast of characters:
Archiboard -
our host, the OMG Architecture Board
Sons of the
Archbishop Informatico-Technologus - various standards bodies
The Quick-Fingered
Sorcerer of Redmond - Bill Gates
Maestro Rational
- creators of UML
Grady Booch
- as himself
E-Mail
Call for Participation - due
date 15 August 1997
The NCITS X3H7 Object Information Management Committee and the Object Management
Group Business Object Domain Task Force (BODTF) will jointly sponsor the
Third Annual Workshop on Business Object Design and Implementation. This
year's workshop will focus on patterns and workflow, areas of high interest
in 1996, as well as component design for Web-based applications, an increasingly
important focus in 1997.
Goals of Business Object Workshop
III
-
Enhance the pattern literature on the specification, design, and implementation
of interoperable, plug and play, distributed Business Object components.
-
Clarify the design and implementation of object-oriented workflow systems,
particularly systems in which workflow is an inherent part of a larger
architecture, rather than an addon.
-
Assess the emerging standards for component design, particularly responses
to the OMG Business Object Domain Task Force RFP on a Business Object Facility
and Common Business Objects.
-
Contribute to emerging architectures for business object component design
for Intranet/Internet applications, particularly those applications that
integrate business objects, web servers, object and relational databases,
and new approaches to client delivery of content..
Results from 1995 Business Object
Workshop I
The 1995 workshop led to a consensus on several important issues:
-
In the future, cycle time will be the most critical issue for business
operations.
-
Products and services will be increasingly supported by software components.
Most of these components must be reused from previous development efforts
in order to meet required cycle times.
-
A radical reversal in the current approach to software engineering is required
to meet market demands. In the future, Business Process Reengineering methods
will be tightly coupled with object-oriented analysis and design. System
components will be loosely coupled to support plug and play.
-
Advances in the software development process are required to dramatically
improve productivity in a component based development environment. Component
based architectures will be built from replaceable units of functionality
that reduce the surface area of systems that are doubling in complexity
each year.
-
There are specific design patterns that should be implemented throughout
business systems that will substantially improve reusability and rigor
in business systems logic. The "Give/Take" pattern that has been standardized
by accounting research should be rigorously implemented in all business
systems and mandated in all accounting systems.
Results from 1996 Business Object
Workshop II
Building on the experience of the 1995 Business Object Workshop, consensus
was extended in the following areas:
-
Analysis patterns can be of enormous benefit.
-
Participants in the Workshop viewed patterns as the best way to introduce
high quality analysis and design artifacts into the development environment.
This is because they are design ideas, not prescriptions, and are more
readily adopted by developers.
-
The general consensus was that patterns should precede standardization
of object frameworks. The OMG Business Object Facility may be the next
place to standardize as this will be a very generic set of patterns.
-
It is better to buy than to build.
-
The current Workflow Coalition (WFC) standard is not suitable for OMG
standardization.
-
The REA Accounting Pattern should be implemented as a prototype for
the next workshop.
-
Interconnectivity between Business Object components is needed.
-
Issues worthy of further discussion:
-
Year 2000 is a major issue. Expect 10% of systems worldwide to fail.
-
Electronic Data Interchange is worthy of strong support as a strategy for
reduction of costs and integration of systems across enterprises.
Focus of This Year's Workshop
The OMG Business Object Domain Task Force has issued an RFP on Common Business
Objects and Business Object Facility. The Business Object Facility is to
provide a component based substructure that allows Business Objects to
be implemented as interoperable plug and play components. Common Business
Objects are plug and play components that are used to support domain specific
application frameworks. Responses to the RFP can be more effectively evaluated
if technical papers are available that provide in-depth analysis of the
following issues.
-
What design patterns are particularly relevant to Business Objects?
-
What are components? How should they be specified? Visualized?
-
What common components should be implemented to support multiple application
domains? Are there common design patterns that cross domains? How can these
components be assembled into domain specific frameworks?
-
What are appropriate architectures/mechanisms for implementing these frameworks
as Internet/Intranet/Extranet distributed object systems?
-
Where are these systems being implemented today? Where are they in production?
Publication of Workshop Proceedings
The 1996-97 Business Object Workshop papers will be published as a book
by Springer Verlag through a review and revision process during and after
the Workshop.
Submission
-
Prospective participants are solicited to submit a 2-3 page position paper
or experience report, in HTML, Word or RTF format, by e-mail to jeff.sutherland@computer.org,
no later than August 15, 1997. All submissions must include the full contact
information of at least one author.
-
Position papers will be converted to HTML and placed on the World Wide
Web for review (see Business
Object Workshop II).
Attendance
-
Attendance to the workshop is limited to facilitate lively discussions
and the exchange of ideas. Participation will be by invitation only, based
on the organizing committee's evaluation of the submissions. Accepted participants
will be notified in September 1996. .
Background
The OOPSLA Workshop on Business Object Design and Implementation is jointly
sponsored by the Accredited Standards Committee X3H7 Object Information
Management Technical Committee and the Object Management Group (OMG) Business
Object Domain Task Force for the purpose of soliciting technical position
papers relevant to the design and implementation of Business Object systems.
X3H7 Object Information Management
The International Standards Organization (ISO) has approved a new work
item to refine and extend the current international standard Reference
Model for Open Distributed Processing
(RM-ODP). X3H7, the U.S. technical committee for this new international
work item, is tasked with the following:
-
Refine the enterprise language, explicating the relationship of an enterprise
specification of a system to other RM-ODP viewpoint specifications of that
system, so as to enable the RM-ODP to be used for specification of object-based
application architectures.
-
Ensure that the enterprise language together with the other viewpoint languages
is suitable for the specification of a concrete application architecture
to fill a specific business need.
-
Measure success with a demonstration of the use of the RM-ODP viewpoint
languages to specify a concrete application architecture.
The Object Management Group has chartered the BODTF to facilitate and promote:
-
the use of OMG distributed object technology for business systems
-
commonality among vertical domain task force standards
-
simplicity in building, using, and deploying business objects - for application
developers
-
interoperability between independently developed business objects
-
the adoption n and use of common business object and application component
standards
And to issue requests, evaluate responses and propose for adoption by the
OMG specifications for objects, frameworks, services and architectures
applicable to a wide range of businesses.
Organizers:
Secretary X3H7 Object Information Management, liaison to X3H2 SQL Database
IDX Systems Corporation
116 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: +1 (617) 266-0001 x2920| Fax: +1 (617) 721 1226
Chair, OMG Business Object Domain Task Force
Cory Casanave
Data Access Corporation
14000 SW 119 Ave
Miami, FL 33186-6017, USA
Phone: +1 (305) 238 0012 | Fax: +1 (305) 238 0017
Merrill Lynch Technology Strategy and Planning
World Financial Center South Tower
New York, NY 10080-6105
Chair, X3H7 Object Information Management Rapporteur and Project Editor,
ISO ODP Enterprise Viewpoint
Chief Scientist-Objects & Models
SHL Systemhouse
12750 Center Court Drive, Suite 700
Cerritos, CA 90703-8583, USA
Phone: +1 (713) 222-2345 | Fax: +1 (562) 860-9668
Chair, Centre for Information and Office Systems
South Bank University
School of Computing, Information Systems & Mathematics
103 Borough Road
London, SE1 0AA, UK
Phone: +44 0171 815 7429
Pointers of Interest


