Web services have become a standard way to provide functions of information systems. The number of web services grows rapidly with the increasing popularity of microservices architecture. In consequence, many business processes are executed entirely through web services. Therefore, optimizing the performance of business process execution may bring many benefits. There are many optimization methods in this area. Our systematic literature review aims to introduce available methods to researchers interested in the optimization of business process execution. We queried four databases: ACM, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, and Springer. Out of 12150 initially found papers, we have selected 128 for the review. We have grouped methods presented in those papers into three stages of business process optimization: Resource Allocation, Service Composition, and Service Scheduling. Service Composition attracts the largest group of researchers with a vast majority of 119 articles in it. Moreover, the most popular are genetic algorithms. In general, researchers mainly propose heuristic methods that optimize business processes during run-time. We see the potential for further exploration at both Resource Allocation and Service Scheduling stages.
Service Oriented Architecture is popular in many organizations. In particular, it has already deeply rooted in large corporations that need to automate entire business processes and implement them in many systems. It has a unique feature that allows unambiguously indicate service that is to realise business process step.
That indication is possible to show directly in BPMN diagram. Thus, it is possible to trace which server has used resources to implement the service and how much of those resources were needed. Therefore, it is possible to build an optimization task that, with limited and unreliable resources, will determine such allocation of components to servers and such an algorithm for assigning tasks to them, so that the processes will work as well as possible. The article presents a model of such an optimization task. This model consists of four layers. The Organization Layer describes the system environment – the types and frequency of initiating business process instances. The Integration Layer describes the business processes and indicates the services that should be performed at every step. The Component Layer describes component characteristics and what services they provide. In Server Layer both: server characteristics and runtime environments necessary for the component to run are described. Finally, the optimization task and evaluation criteria are formulated.
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