A contract model to deploy and control cooperative processes
Résumé
In a virtual enterprise context, business process interoperability and cooperative process enactment are important in order to achieve a common objective despite the distribution in space, time and organizations. A contract is a facility that allows for deploying cross-organizational processes, monitoring and enforcing the composition and the enactment of these processes both inside and outside the organization's boundaries. This paper presents a contract model for describing clauses that address business interactions, for deploying cross-organizational activities (called synchronization points) and for enforcing and controling policies through the use of ECA rules. A contract is an XML document that allows for describing how process Web services cooperate and how synchronization points enforce contract clauses.