Business process management for a message-based exchange infrastructure

A system for managing collaborative processing between software components in an exchange infrastructure of an enterprise system, the system comprising:

• an integration repository that stores, at design time, a model of a business process that associates a first application and a second application of the exchange infrastructure according to requirements of the business process and that links a first interface description of the first application and a second interface description of the second application, the integration repository comprising connectivity descriptions of the first application and the second application and all other software components available to be installed in the exchange infrastructure, design-time interface descriptions of the first application and the second application, message context descriptions of messages to be exchanged between the first application and the second application, and interface mapping descriptions associating pairs of the design-time interface descriptions, wherein the design-time interface descriptions, the message context descriptions, and the interface mapping descriptions are linked to at least one design-time business process;
• and
• an integration directory that captures, at run time, a configuration-specific collaboration description of a system landscape of the exchange infrastructure to, the capturing comprising retrieving the model of the business process from the integration repository, accessing a list of currently installed software components in the exchange infrastructure from a system landscape directory, retrieving the connectivity descriptions for each of the currently installed software components from the integration repository, and creating a configuration-specific description of one or more context objects that use message content to determine a message recipient according to the model of the business process, wherein the context objects provide access-related information;
• the integration repository and the integration directory are accessible by a runtime engine that comprises a business process engine, that receives a message from the first application, that determines a required interface for delivering the message, generates a semantic link for the message to associate the message with the business process, transforms the message into a format expected by the second application according to the required transformation;
• executes a messaging service between the first and the second application, the messaging service being defined by the model of the business process and correlating the message based on the semantic link.

A method for managing collaborative processing between software components in an exchange infrastructure of an enterprise system, the method comprising:

• storing, in an integration repository at design time, a model of a business process that associates a first application and a second application of the exchange infrastructure according to requirements of the business process and that links a first interface description of the first application and a second interface description of the second application, the integration repository comprising connectivity descriptions of the first application and the second application and all other software components available to be installed in the exchange infrastructure, design-time interface descriptions of the first application and the second application, message context descriptions of messages to be exchanged between the first application and the second application, and interface mapping descriptions associating pairs of the design-time interface descriptions, wherein the design-time interface descriptions, the message context descriptions, and the interface mapping descriptions are linked to at least one design-time business process;
• capturing a configuration-specific collaboration description of a system landscape of the exchange infrastructure to an integration directory at run time, the capturing comprising retrieving the model of the business process from the integration repository, accessing a list of currently installed software components in the exchange infrastructure from a system landscape directory, retrieving the connectivity descriptions for each of the currently installed software components from the integration repository, and creating a configuration-specific description of one or more context objects that provide access-related information and that use message content to determine a message recipient according to the model of the business process;
• receiving a message from the first application at a runtime engine implemented on one or more processors, the runtime engine comprising a business process engine;
• determining, using the business process engine to execute the model of the business process, a required interface for delivering the message, the determining comprising identifying the second application as a receiver of the message based on the configuration-specific description of the one or more context objects, reading a routing rule corresponding to the second application from the configuration-specific collaboration description captured to the integration directory from the integration repository, evaluating the routing rule, applying a mapping that is specified by the routing rule and that defines a required transformation between the first interface and the second interface, and generating a semantic link for the message to associate the message with the business process;
• transforming the message into a format expected by the second application according to the required transformation;
• and
• executing, by the runtime engine, a messaging service between the first and the second application, the messaging service being defined by the model of the business process and correlating the message based on the semantic link.