BPM Based Robust E-business Application Development

Companies rely more and more on the dependability of their e-business application. E-business systems are, by their nature, heterogeneous, consisting not only of information technology component but also human- and infrastructural resources. Therefore, the assurance of a proper level of dependability has to cover all aspects of the system. In the paper, a Business Process Modeling (BPM) based approach is presented, which uses an extended UML profile to design the business processes to compensate the weaknesses of resources. A fault model describes the typical failure modes of the individual element types. Analysis methodologies well proven in the field of dependable computing are used to assess the dependability of the system and provide a basis for countermeasures against the faults. The paper describes the experiences with a pilot application.