Microservices-based approach for a collaborative business process management cloud platform

Abstract

Nowadays, as a result of the adoption of new Internet technologies like cloud computing and containers, new software architectural styles like microservices, and emerging business models, organizations are able to establish collaborative networks for executing Collaborative Business Processes (CBPs) in a flexible way. Current approaches of Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs) for implementing and executing CBPs have shortcomings, not only related to the services offered, but also about issues typical of the technological solution chosen, such as portability, elasticity, and privacy even when they are cloud-based. Portability refers to the dependency that is created due to the heterogeneity of the services offered by different cloud providers (generating a problem known as “vendor lock-in”), elasticity defines the degree to which a system is able to adapt to workload changes by provisioning and deprovisioning resources in an autonomic manner, and privacy refers to sensitive information about one person or a group that is expected to be hidden from others (e.g., identity, address, health, and hobbies). Then, the purpose of this work is to define an adequate approach for a cloud architecture of a CBP management platform facing these issues. To do so, starting from a definition of a cloud platform architecture that solves (almost all) shortcomings for CBP services offered, an enhancement making use of the microservices paradigm is proposed, overcoming the cloud difficulties previously identified.