Wednesday, 5/23/2007
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Level: Introductory

Presently, business processes are largely completed using Information Technology (IT). Unfortunately, a “gap” exists between IT and operators that results in fragmented, human-centric execution of end-to-end processes. The “IT gap” requires otherwise non-technical users to perform IT-intensive tasks to complete workflows. Further, awareness of available resources is often limited. The end result of this IT-driven, human centric model is fragmented, sub-optimal operations. Our approach to closing the "IT gap" is labeled Semantic Service Oriented Architecture (SSOA). SSOA enables dynamic discovery of new business services and data as they become available and provides resources that enable semantic, machine interpretable, descriptions of those services and data. The presentation describes how workflow and agent technologies leverage “semantically enabled” metadata allowing end users to rapidly construct new "virtual" applications according to business needs using shared, reusable business services. SSOA foundations and motivations, along with detailed technical descriptions, metadata functions and architectural considerations are presented.