Managing Data Dependency Constraints Through Business Processes

Abstract

Business Process Management (BPM) and related tools and systems have generated tremendous advantages for enterprise systems as they provide a clear separation between process, application and data logic. In spite of the abstraction value that BPM provides through explicit articulation of process models, a seamless flow between the data, application and process layers has not been fully realized in mainstream enterprise software, thus often leaving process models disconnected from underlying business semantics captured through data and application logic. The result of this disconnect is disparity (and even conflict) in enforcing various rules and constraints in the different layers. In this paper, we propose to synergise the process and data layers through the introduction of data dependency constraints, that can be modelled at the process level, and enforced at the data level through a (semi) automated translation into DBMS native procedures. The simultaneous and consistent specification ensures that disparity between the process and data logic can be minimized.