Business and IT Alignment: The IT-Socket

Robert Woitsch, BOC Asset Management GmbH, Bäckerstrasse 5, 1010, Vienna, Austria –
robert.woitsch@boc-eu.com

Dimitris Karagiannis, University of Vienna, Department of Knowledge and Business

Engineering, Brünnerstrasse 72, 1210 Vienna, Austria – dk@dke.univie.ac.at

Dimitris Plexousakis, Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and

Technology, GR 70013, Heraklion, Crete – dp@ics.forth.gr

Knut Hinkelmann, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Schweiz, 4600 Olten,

Riggenbachstrasse 16, knut.hinkelmann@fhnw.ch

Abstract:
Today we’re witnessing the necessity to align Business and Information Technology (IT) as
well as a change in the role of IT from an enabler to an industrial sector in its own right.
Based on the assumption that businesses in different sectors of the economy will require IT
for different reasons and in different ways, this article introduces the EU project plugIT that
aspires to develop an IT-Socket that will realize the vision of businesses “plugging-in” to IT.
Three demonstration scenarios deal with: (1) “Certification” of IT infrastructure to stay
compliant with regulations, (2) “Virtual Organisation” by evolving the current service
orientation to a higher and more business driven abstraction as well as, (3) “Governance” of
IT infrastructure introducing business context into highly distributed and complex systems.
The IT-Socket follows a model-driven approach by introducing graphical modelling
languages as mediators between the domain experts and IT. The research challenge is to link
human interpretable graphical models – partly semi-formal – with machine interpretable
semantic formalisms to enable: (1) a tighter involvement of domain experts when expressing
formal knowledge specifying business requirements on IT infrastructure and services, (2)
different graphical modelling languages for different views on the IT-Socket to provide
modelling languages the domain expert is used to work with as well as, (3) a domain specific
notation for semantics by integrating formal concepts of semantics with the graphic notation
from modelling languages.

Keywords: Next Generation Modelling Framework, Knowledge Management, Semantics,

IT-Socket, Virtual Organisation, IT-Governance, Certification

1. Introduction
Today we’re witnessing the necessity to align Business and Information Technology (IT) as
well as a change in the role of IT from an enabler to an industrial sector in its own right.
(Forrester, 2008), (EITO, 2008). The reasons for this are manifold: legal aspects, regulations,
business requirements, economic factors, etc. Technological trends such as SOA, Software as
a Service and Virtualisation are influencing the way in which IT services are rendered.
Model-based approaches and IT-Governance are prominent candidates to bridge evolving
business contexts and IT, in order to adapt the provisioning of IT for business needs. This
challenge can be met by capitalizing on semantic technologies for IT-Governance.
Based on the assumption that businesses in different sectors of the economy will require IT
for different reasons and in different ways, the EU project plugIT - FP7-3ICT-231430
(plugIT, 2009) aspires to develop an IT-Socket that will realize the vision of businesses
“plugging-in” to IT. The IT has evolved from back-office support, to the support of the core
business process and has now reached the level of strategic differentiation (Carr, 2003). In
other words, in branches like Airline Transport, Finance, Automotive Industry or Health Care,
IT is a strategic factor in business. Three demonstration scenarios deal with: (1)
“Certification” of IT infrastructure to stay compliant with regulations, (2) “Virtual
Organisation” by evolving the current service orientation to a higher and more business
driven abstraction as well as (3) “Governance” of IT infrastructure introducing business
context into highly distributed and complex systems.
The “Certification Use Case” demonstrates how the alignment between the business area and
the IT domain during the certification process for regulations such as SOX, EuroSOX, ITIL®,
CoBIT®, ISO20000 or BASEL II can be established.
The “Virtual Organization Use Case” demonstrates how virtual organizations can be
supported using business driven requirements and semantically described SLA’s for
intelligent interpretation.
The “Governance Use Case” demonstrates how intelligent agents are used to identify the IT
infrastructure of data centres. Graphical models are regarded as mediators between system
administration and an intelligent discovery environment.

Figure 1 The IT-Socket

2. The IT-Socket
Industrialisation, as known from various other domains, is a phenomenon that is observed in
today’s IT1 infrastructure and can be compared with the industrialisation of electricity, where
electric power is provided and consumed via power sockets (Hochstein et al., 2007)
(Lamberti, 2009). The vision of plugIT is to develop an IT-Socket, where IT can be consumed
by plugging in business in a similar way, as electric power is used by electronic devices when
plugged into a power socket (plugIT, 2009).
There are different alignment approaches that range from formal, to unstructured and up to
intuitive mechanisms. The plugIT approach is to externalise the expert knowledge by using
graphical semi-formal models and proceed with formalisation to enable a computer-supported
alignment using semantic technologies.

1
The term “information technology” (IT) is used as a synonym to “information and communication technology”
(ICT), because of the acronym of the project.
Figure 1 depicts the plugIT vision, where domain experts externalise their knowledge via the
use of models. These models are then further formalised to enable automated support of
business and IT alignment. The extent of the semantic technology is hence different by each
use-case. The following sections discusses: first, the idea of the IT-Socket, second the initial
results of the IT-Socket analysis, third the realisation approach using models and fourth
mentions the role of the semantic in the IT-Socket.

2.1 The IT-Socket Vision

Business and IT alignment is currently researched in a set of initiatives like in the research
projects focusing on technical transformation such as (SOA4ALL, 2009), (COMPAS, 2009),
or in the projects also involving business aspects like (SUPER, 2009) and (BREIN, 2009).
Although there are a set of initiatives, vendors and guidelines (Teubner & Feller, 2008) the
business perspective – that needs to be considered - is still underrepresented in SOA
approaches. A survey of 175 research papers about SOA from 2000 to 2008 outlines this
statement (Viering et al., 2009).
The goal of integrating the business perspective through providing detailed description of the
alignment between business requirement specification and IT is fulfilled by externalisation
current participants’ knowledge within the alignment process. The model-based approach
used here provides a way to conceptual linkage between business requirements and IT
(Willcocks & Lacity, 2006), (Karagiannis et al., 2008).
Such alignment is therefore described by models that are seen as the initial step of
formalisation. The key challenge is the integration of different modelling languages that are
used to describe the business and IT perspective. In the following the IT-Socket that is
symbolically represented by a “power socket icon” in Figure 3 is investigated in more detail
The focus of the IT-Socket analysis is the alignment of the relevant parts of the business
perspective as well as the relevant parts of the IT-perspective. Relevant business parts are the
requirements – that are derived from the business processes –, whereas relevant IT-
perspective parts are the provided IT-products. IT products are in this case seen in such a
context as representing packaged or bundled IT services that can be commercially exploited.
The analysis was based on three aspects: (1) expert interviews carried out with iTG2, HLRS3
and CINECA4, (2) complementing experiments at universities where a simplified challenge
for the IT-Socket has been designed and finally (3) by survey in the literature (Kohnke et al.,
2008), (Mitra, 2005), (Dostal et al., 2007), (OASIS, 2009), (Bloomberg, 2004), (Charlsworth
& Davis, 2006), (Hedin, 2006), (Windley, 2007) and (Strohm & Ulich, 1997).
Three aspects are specified (plugIT D2.1, 2009):
the competence aspect - human knowledge,
the technical aspect - software, hardware and IT infrastructure, as well as
the organisational aspects - IT-Provider executes processes and hence takes
over responsibility for parts of the IT-Infrastructure.
The identified IT services that are provided in form of an IT product that bundles these
services and can be classified within the three pillars, as indicated in Figure 2.

2
ITG, Innovation Technology Group SA, http://www.itg.pl
3
HLRS, High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart, http://www.hlrs.de
4
CINECA, Consorzio Interuniversitario, http://www.cineca.it
 Figure 2 IT product as composition of IT services

Furthermore it was necessary, in addition to the identified aspects of the IT services – seen as
a horizontal classification – to introduce a vertical classification consisting of the business and
IT perspective. This vertical classification consists of six elements defining the IT-Socket:
Business Perspective:
1. Competence requirement to correctly specify the IT products.
2. Technical requirements of the IT products.
3. Organisational requirements to correctly specify the IT products.
IT Perspective:
4. Competence provision of an IT service.
5. Technical provision of an IT service.
6. Organisational provision of an IT service.
These six elements are introduced as the IT-Socket Description framework that relies on three
pillars (a) competence, (b) technique and (c) organisation. Both, the business and IT
perspective hold both parts that are directly part of the IT-Socket and parts that are seen as
external as they are not considered to be relevant in the context of the business and IT
alignment.
The IT-Socket Description Framework considers the following pillars: (a) IT services in form
of competence provision like helpdesks, training or consulting, (b) IT services in form of
technical provision like applications, middleware or housing as well as (c) IT services in form
of organisational provision like maintenance processes, user administration or infrastructure
monitoring.
 Figure 3 The Six Elements of the IT-Socket

IT services belong to different abstraction layers. For example, a specific IT service such as
“housing” which is used to provide the environment for a server would be considered as being
a lower abstraction than an “ERP-Application“ IT service, which is considered on a high
abstraction layer. Basically the different abstraction layers indicate the “distance” of the IT
service from the consuming IT transparent5 business process. A concrete definition of these
abstraction layers is currently not possible, as there are different abstraction layers like (The
Open Group, 2009), (ITIL, 2009) as well as client specific adaptations like in the use case of
CINECA and HLRS. Applying the paradigm of the electric power socket, the business
requirements would be seen as the “plug” that has different appearance depending on the
requested abstraction layer. The challenge for the IT-Socket is therefore to provide a set of
adapters – in form of semantic technology – that can deal with ideally any business plug that
is plugged into the IT-Socket.
The consequence is that the IT-Socket must deal with different levels of abstraction and with
different classification of abstraction. In order to address the described challenge, the IT-
Socket approach introduces a framework which is then being adapted by each IT-Socket
provider in order to address the requirements of the layer utilized at the IT-Provider site. This
approach on the other hand results in IT-Sockets designed in a different way, but still facing
the requirement that independent of the IT-Socket design the provided IT products need to be
aligned in the same way as in any other IT-Socket. The alignment between the requests
generated by the businesses and the actual provision of the IT-Products is performed through
formalisation of the business requests to such an extent that: (a) the appropriate abstraction
layer can be identified, (b) the IT service parameters can be explicitly described in order to
find the most appropriate IT service for the given business challenge and (c) the appropriate
product framework in terms of legal aspects, responsibility, additional services like training,
service, or helpdesk as well as the financial conditions can be identified.
Different alignment approaches can be found in the bodies (ACS, 2009), (ISACA, 2009),
(ITGI, 2009), (CISR, 2009) or (OCG, 2009). A comparison of 17 different methods to reach
the desired goal are discussed in (Thomas et al., 2009). In order to allow the usage within the
model-driven IT-Socket, these approaches are distinguished in their range from formal
procedures over heuristic procedures towards semi-structure or intuitive procedures. The
5
IT-transparent means that the higher-layer – here the business process – does not need to know details of the
lower layer – here the IT-Infrastructure. So the IT is “transparent” in the viewpoint of the business process.
approach which is then selected depends on the complexity of the IT product, the competence,
the organisational culture and the like.
For this reason the IT-Socket is required to introduce a framework that allows any possible
kind of alignment to be designed and applied. Different alignment procedures may lead to
different results. In the following the aforementioned four approaches are briefly introduced:
a. The formal approaches like the application of mathematical models to identify the most
efficient IT products. Prominent examples are: the IT-Portfolio Management
(Zimmermann, 2008) and the identification of services based on business process
model-analysis from (Esswein et al., 2009). The concrete business requirements and the
expected IT services are modelled in form of mathematical expressions by a group of
heterogeneous experts. Then optimization algorithms are performed to find the best IT
product. As the original modelling of the business request via expert opinions is an
externalisation process, this formal approach is not a strictly formal approach but uses
formal algorithms to identify the optimal abstraction level.
b. The heuristic approaches are similar to the formal approaches but not expressed with
formalisms in such detail. One example of such an approach is the Technology
Evaluation Centre (TEC, 2009). This approach uses a series of questionnaires to guide
and support the user in formulating the business request. Once the questionnaires have
been filled in a detailed and accurate business request is available and can be used for
the selection of the appropriate IT product. Different model-driven approaches can also
be classified here like the model-driven business application system development
approach from (Kätker & Patig, 2009) or frameworks like SOAM (Offmann, 2008).
c. The informal approach seems to be the most common one, when searching for IT
services. Here the traditional negotiation processes can be applied, starting by sending a
Request for Information (RFI) to open an enquiry within the market. The Request for
Quotation (RFQ) is an opportunity for potential suppliers to quote costs to well
structured descriptions. The Request for Tender – (RFT) is a vague formulated call,
were suppliers can answer. Finally the Request for Proposal (RFP) is a narrowed query
for concrete offer. An overview is introduced in (Mhay, 2009) or in (Shawn, 2009).
(Andrea, 2003) introduces thoughts on adaptive alignment.
d. Finally, the intuitive alignment approach can be observed, which deals with the explicit
use of human competence and the ability to align business requests with IT products.
This method can vary extremely, effected by unknowing and hence not considering, up
to highly qualitative alignment done by a group of experts. So the term “intuitive”
alignment is understood as human driven. This does not rate this method as weak
approach, but stresses that the alignment is performed by experts and the success of the
alignment relies on the expertise of the involved persons.
Consequently the vision followed by the IT-Socket approach is not to agree on one standard
for the alignment of the business and IT demands but to provide a holistic framework that can
be designed, realised and used in different ways. The framework has to guarantee that by a
given business requirement, the different IT-Sockets will find comparable results although the
results can vary as there are different mechanisms behind. In order to satisfy the
aforementioned requirements a model-based approach has been chosen to realise such a
framework. So the assumption is that the IT-Socket gets modelled by both parts, the business
viewpoint and the IT-viewpoint. In order to do this, one has to provide appropriate modelling
tools. The next step, the description of different elements, is carried out first by mapping the
IT-Socket to a modelling language that enables users to describe an overview of the IT-Socket
and in the second step to identify a set of different modelling languages, where each language
is describing a different element.
2.2 Realising the IT-Socket
For the realisation of the IT-Socket a model-based approach is proposed, where models are
understood as a formal representation of the real world in order to reduce the complexity, and
enable formal mechanisms to be applied. The model-based approach is proposed, as relevant
knowledge for business and IT can be externalised in a semi-formal or formal way. This
simplifies the externalisation of expert knowledge, as domain experts in both fields, business
and IT, can use modelling languages they are familiar with in order to produce semi-formal or
formal knowledge representations.
The challenge in this part is to allow the description of the aforementioned six IT-Socket
elements in different modelling languages, taking into account the fact that probably more
than one modelling language will be used to describe one of the elements.
A short overview on modelling languages is provided in the following chapter, here the
content that needs to be described within these elements is introduced.

Figure 4 Mapping of modelling domains to IT-Socket elements

Figure 4 introduces the IT-Socket framework, consisting out of six elements for the IT-Socket
and additional two elements for enabling the description of the business and the IT
perspective. In the following each of the elements is briefly discussed.
i. The business is described using models for different aspects such as business
processes, data and knowledge, business rules and the like. The IT-Socket modelling
framework separates between business aspects relevant for the IT-Socket and aspects
that are considered outside of the IT-Socket. So for example business processes that
need alignment with the underlying IT are concerned and therefore inside the IT-
Socket. Business strategies that have no influence to the alignment are on the other
side considered as outside of the IT-Socket.
ii. The business requirement formulates the IT product in terms of technical,
organisational and competence aspects. This representation strongly depends on the
selected alignment approach. If a formal alignment approach is used, the according
requirement specification would be expressed in mathematical formulas. In case of
using a heuristic alignment approach, the requirement specification may be a
collection of answers to question. The informal alignment approach is applied in case
of unstructured text, whereas the intuitive alignment approach is used in case of vague
expressions.
These two elements are interpreted as the “plug” that completes the symbol of the IT-Socket,
where business is plugged into IT. The counterpart is the IT-Socket itself that is described via
six elements. These six elements are now described via bottom up starting with the lowest
layer the infrastructure.
iii. On the lower edge of the IT-Socket there is the IT for the IT-Socket. Commonly this
includes the software, hardware and infrastructure required to provide the IT services.
The exact border to IT that is seen as not relevant to the IT-Socket and hence
classified as outside the IT-Socket depends on level of detail the IT-Governance is
applied for the business and IT alignment. Commonly it is understood as IT
infrastructure.
iv. On top of the IT infrastructure, here called “IT for the IT-Socket” are IT services. The
major group are technical IT services, such as software, hardware and IT-
infrastructure that are offered to clients within the different abstraction layers.
v. Parallel to the technical IT service there are IT services in terms of competence
provision such as help-desks, consulting or training. This element describes the
service that is provided as well as the skills that are required. This paper argues to
follow a holistic view on the business and IT-alignment, hence the IT competence
provision is also seen as an IT service although these services are not technical
services.
vi. The third aspect is the organisational IT service that describes IT processes the IT
provider is responsible for. Maintenance, backups or tests. This element therefore
discusses which processes are performed by the IT-Provider.
The aforementioned elements are used to describe the IT perspective of the IT-Socket. Next
two elements, describing the alignment relevant aspects, are considered as the business
perspectives of the IT-Socket.
vii. The IT service competence provision is enlarged with competence on the business
alignment. The aim is to explicitly define the skills that are necessary to apply an
alignment method considering different approaches. It describes the necessary skills to
perform an alignment.
viii. The business alignment organisation aspect is the sixth element of the IT-Socket,
which defines the processes that are performed during the alignment. Different
methods require different description, distinguishing between mathematical models on
the one side and intuitive actions on the other side. The aforementioned business
requirements that are seen as the business plug, need to correlate with the processes
for the alignment that are defined in this element as well as the skills that are
necessary to perform this alignment mentioned above.
Each of the elements may use different collections of modelling languages, and each of the
modelling languages can have different formal expressions. This leads to heterogeneous
collection of different models expressed in different modelling languages in different formal
levels. Different models are used to describe the different elements of the IT-Socket.

2.4 The Model Description Framework in the IT-Socket

Modelling is seen as describing relevant aspects of a real-world in a defined language. The
procedure of modelling results in a model, which is a reproduction of the relevant part of a
reality containing essential aspects for specific viewpoints. In order to support different
viewpoints a set of different modelling languages are required. Most likely they are provided
by different tools. This section introduces the model-based approach and the modelling
languages. In the following the modelling languages are classified according the four
dimensions.
Perspectives - this dimension helps to clarify the role of the user and the application fields
of the modelling language
Aspects - this dimension is about what should be modelled and thus deals with the
application fields and the modelling concepts
Formalisation - this dimension allows analysing the level of formalisation and the
graphical notation, i.e. syntax, the semantics and expressiveness of the languages.
Language families - this dimension groups modelling languages which are based on a
common philosophy.
Different stakeholders have different viewpoints on each of these aspects. There are various
frameworks for describing the elements of an enterprise architecture like the Zachman
Framework (Zachman 1987), the BPMS Framework (Karagiannis 1995) or The Open Group
Architecture Framework TOGAF (Open Group 2009). In the following we look at the
dimensions of the Zachman framework.

Figure 5 The dimensions of the classification framework

In the following the two dimensions perspective and aspects are introduced as they are IT-
Socket specific. The other two dimension formalisation and language family are generic
descriptions for modelling languages independent on the application domain.
i. The Perspective Dimension helps to clarify the role of the stakeholders or roles for
which the model is intended. As the IT-Socket in general aims to bridge the business
and IT layer the distinction of the business and IT perspectives is important. The
business perspective is further divided into strategy and business, because the strategy
of a company determines the business and both business and IT have to be compliant
with the strategy. On the IT level there is the distinction between system and
technology models, where the last one contains more technology and
implementation details.
This results in the following classification scheme that is proposed for the IT-Socket:
Strategy - the perspective of the business owners. They outline the major
objectives of the company and how to achieve them in general.
Business - the perspective of the business professional. Strategic objectives have
to be deployed in the daily business. Business engineers for example model at this
layer the processes and describe how a product of the company has to be produced.
Systems - the perspective of the System engineer. On this level, software
components, servers, workflow models etc are represented. It is independent of a
specific platform, programming language, operating system etc.
 Technology - the perspective of the IT professional; it roughly corresponds to the
platform specific model of OMG.
ii. The Aspects Dimension describes the application fields of the modelling languages.
Similar to the perspectives, there is no generally agreed upon set of aspects in the
various frameworks for enterprise architectures. For the IT-Socket the following
aspects are classified:
Data/Knowledge - this aspect describes the data, information and knowledge
being used. Zachman only called this aspect data, but since there is no explicit
knowledge aspect and while knowledge builds on data and information,
knowledge is added to this dimension.
Process - processes coordinate the tasks of a company and explain at different
abstraction levels how and in which order tasks have to be performed. It
corresponds to Zachman's Function perspective.
Organisation - people act in an organisational environment which is described by
this aspect.
Applications - the models for this aspect describe IT systems, applications and
their connections in a network environment, it combines Zachman's Network.
Products - this aspect describes the features of products and services of an
enterprise. This is important because products and services of an enterprise
determine the processes and business model and thus should be represented
explicitly. The product aspect is not available in Zachman's framework but can be
found in business process management frameworks like ARIS and BPMS.
Motivation -enterprises do not - or should not - act randomly. When an enterprise
executes a business process or applies a business rule, it should be able to say why.
This is modelled in the motivation perspective.
As the other two dimension that have been introduced modelling family and formalisation are
generic dimensions and not IT-Socket specific, they are not discussed here.
Considering the aforementioned two dimensions spans the IT-Socket model description
framework that is introduced in Figure 6.

Perspectives Data/ People/

Knowledge Process Organisation Application Products Motivation

Strategy Entities Process Busi ness Business Business

Map Uni ts Model G oals
Model

Business
Entities Process Organi Applica- Product Business
Relations Model gram tions Model Rul e
Ontology Model
Systems
Logical Workflow User Model Application Pr oduction
Data Model Model Archi tecture Rule
Model

Techn ology Pr oduction

Physical Plattform System Rule
Data Model Specific Design Aspe cts
WF-Model Design

Figure 6 Models associated to perspectives and aspects

2.5 Applying the modelling languages to the IT-Socket
Following the aforementioned eight elements in chapter 2.2, each focuses on specific aspects
and dimensions and mapping these IT-Socket elements with the previously introduced
modelling description framework results in a pre-defined set of modelling languages that is
available for each element of the IT-Socket that is depicted in Figure 7. For more detailed
view on respective modelling languages for each element please see Figure 6
Based on the users, the use cases and the level of the abstraction used for the element
descriptions, models from different perspectives can be used for the same element. E.g.
process models from the business perspective may be useful to describe elements on lower
levels of the socket.
The business element of the IT-Socket emphasises the description of business processes, thus
primarily the languages of the aspect "Process" from the business perspective are applicable.
This description may start on a high level, using e.g. a process map that can be found in the
strategic perspective of the framework. Apart from that, the strategic perspective is usually
described outside the socket, founding the basis of the socket's business view. As business
processes are related to several other aspects of a company, knowledge and data (e.g.
documents), organisational elements etc. may also be relevant for the business plug.
Specifying the requirements is rarely done by means of graphical models, but actually may
have dependencies from several aspects, for example the size of an organisation unit, existing
applications, products and the industry. Further on, knowledge on these aspects or
dependencies may be modelled and requirements may also be directly derived from business
rules.

Figure 7 Relevant aspects and dimensions per IT-Socket element

The competences of requirements specification as well as the IT-Service competence strongly
rely on the knowledge aspects. While the first knowledge domain resides in the business as
well as in the technical perspective, the latter is more related to the system perspective.
The requirement specification on the lower level of the socket is also referred to as the
alignment processes. The perspective is more on systems but the knowledge also relates to the
business perspective. Accordingly, modelling languages, especially for describing processes,
correspond to different perspectives. Amongst the process aspect which again is related to
other aspects, especially knowledge and data regarding the alignment. Rules may also be an
important aspects regarding business alignment and possibly proving completeness.
IT processes as a service have a strong IT focus as well as a relation to the client-side, which
may be more a business view. This socket-element focuses on the process aspects that include
organisational responsibilities and applications. The models, particularly the process models,
may use languages assigned to different perspectives, e.g. process maps or UML activity
diagrams. The service catalogue is technically described and system oriented, focussing on
the application aspect. Even though, the services are related to data, users and processes.
IT-Infrastructure at the bottom of the IT-Socket is described from a technical and system
perspective. It covers mostly application aspects, but roles, responsibilities, data, and
processes are closely related.

2.6 The Role of Semantic in the IT-Socket

When applying the model-based approach to realise the IT-Socket, the user faces a set of
different modelling languages each classified in different perspectives, aspects, and
formalisation levels depending on different modelling language families.
Therefore the main reason for using the semantic technologies is to act as a mediator between
the modelling languages and model, thus ensuring that the requirements expressed in the
business perspective in one modelling language are considered in the IT-perspective using a
different modelling languages with a different formal expressiveness. Models describing an
element of the IT-Socket can either be formal, semi-formal or unstructured. For example,
there are different alignment procedures each requiring a different level of formalisation of
the business requirement. For the intuitive alignment, maybe a text document is sufficient,
whereas for a mathematical approach, a well-formalised description of the business
requirement is needed. In order to mediate between these different descriptions, semantic
technology is applied to translate models between modelling languages.
To be more specific, the semantic technology is used as a “glue” to connect the different
elements together and form a holistic IT-Socket. Here, the border between the business
perspective and the IT perspective is important, as there is not only the challenge of different
modelling languages, and different formal expressiveness but also a total different context.
The role of semantic is therefore manifold. First, semantic models are a well-formalised
expression that can be used to describe IT-Socket elements in case a strict formal description
is required. Second, semantic technology is used to mediate between different modelling
languages, either used to describe one IT-Socket element, or to glue different IT-Socket
elements together. Third, the different context in the business perspective and in the IT-
perspective is a candidate for translation applying semantic mechanism. Forth, the process of
aligning the models from the business perspective with the models of the IT-perspective can
be supported by semantic technology.
In the following the research challenge of the IT-Socket that is faced in the project plugIT are
discussed.

3. The Research Challenge

Basically there are two different research challenges, first the conceptual integration that deals
with the mediation between different modelling languages, and second the technical
integration that deals with the implementation of a holistic and distributed Next Generation
Modelling Framework (NGMF).

3.1 The Conceptual Integration

Conceptual Integration for plugIT targets the integration of modelling languages currently
existing on the market (e.g. business process modelling languages such as EPC, BPMN,
ADONIS®, UML Activity Diagrams, BPEL). The integration within plugIT targets the
integration of semantic technology into different modelling languages that are required to
describe the IT-Socket to enable an alignment based on semantics (Karagiannis, 2008).

Figure 8 The plugIT Modelling Framework

The first Research Challenge (RC1) is the expression of graphical modelling languages
in the form of ontological descriptions:
plugIT considers the syntax and semantics of models to discover overlapping knowledge. The
meaning of the graphical modelling elements is expressed in so-called modelling language
ontology (MLO) – a formal representation of its modelling principles. This means that a
modelling language, say BPMN, will be represented as an MLO specifying the modelling
elements in an ontology (comp. (Kappel et. Al, 2006)).
The second Research Challenge (RC2) is the integration and translation of graphical
modelling languages:
The comparison and transformation between modelling languages need to consider syntactic
and semantic layers, which have to be compared with respect to their meanings (Kühn,2004),
(Murzek, 2008) . While ontologies for semantic description are currently standard, the
syntactic layer also needs a description which will be developed in RC1. In case those
transformations from a similar source format into the desired target format are already
available, they will be used although the translations may not be entirely correct. As the
human user compares the outcome, the differences become obvious and the translation
procedure can be adapted to the new source format. The representative ontology is used as a
reference ontology to enable the mapping from source modelling languages into target
languages (comp. (Calvanese et.al., 1998), (Lembo et.al., 2002), (Manakanatas et.al. 2006),
(Rahm et al, 2001))
The third Research Challenge (RC3) is building reference ontologies for the modelling
languages:
plugIT will investigate the appropriate expressive power of a reference ontology that is
required to allow explicitly the transformation between modelling languages. The meta meta
modelling approach (meta2) (comp. (Karagiannis et.al. 2006)) – like MOF, CEDIF or
ADONIS – is used to describe the elements of the modelling languages (comp. (Kühn 2004),
(Murzek, 2008)). For example the meta meta level defines generic modelling elements like
the modelling object, the relation or the attribute. The modelling languages (at the meta level)
describe the elements as derivations like activity, process start, or a process end as modelling
objects and the name and description of the activity as a modelling attribute.
The fourth Research Challenge (RC4) is the automatic generation of machine
interpretable domain ontologies out of graphical models:
The created models need to become meaningful in the same manner as the modelling
languages become meaningful. Therefore a model ontology (MO) is generated out of the
graphical model, where each model is automatically annotated with the corresponding MLO.
The fifth Research Challenge (RC5) is the translation between domain ontologies.
Assuming the generation of different business and IT domain ontologies out of models, it is
reasonable to identify mechanisms that translate between the business domain ontology and
the IT domain ontology using the corresponding MLO and the CRO as the bridge. This
enables the business expert to view knowledge, which has been expressed by the IT-expert in
the modelling language the business expert is used to and vice versa. This approach enables to
communicate the knowledge in the graphical representation the viewer is familiar with.
The solutions to these research challenges will change the way models will be used in
business environments as (a) domain experts can express themselves in the graphical
modelling language they are used to, (b) experts from different domains can communicate,
each using graphical modelling languages they are familiar with and (c) models can be
transformed into more expressive and machine interpretable formalisms.
The core idea of plugIT is to use semi-formal graphical models for domain experts avoiding
the necessity for the domain expert to design formal models.
Therefore plugIT plans to involve designers in all stages in which a fully-automated process
cannot take place (e.g. heterogeneity resolution). The designer or domain expert will act as
reviewers of semantic coherence as well.
These challenges are currently tackled by merging two communities and two approaches.
Business have a need for a unified view on business processes in a machine readable form
that allows querying their process spaces by logical expressions corresponding to business
semantics. Businesses lack such a machine readable representation of their process space as a
whole on a semantic level and the lack of such a representation is a major obstacle towards
the reduction of human intervention in associated tasks. Semantic Web on the other hand
provides suitable knowledge representation techniques. In order to fill the gap between them
and to combine business process management with information technology semantic
integration of those two is required.
In general, the aim of information integration is to provide an integrated a coherent view of
data stored in multiple, heterogeneous information sources. Information integration is a very
active field of research and many works have been published in the recent literature
Different forms of integration can be distinguished:
Schema Integration: Design a global unified schema
Data Integration: Take into account both schema and actual data
 Semantic Integration: Take into account ontologies, schemata and data which can be
structured, unstructured or semi-structured
Semantic integration uses ontologies to exemplify the semantics of data and schema.
Normally they are used to identify and resolve heterogeneity problems at schema and data
level, as a means for establishing explicit formal vocabulary to share between applications.
Therefore, one can say that one of the goals of using ontologies is to avoid the problem of
heterogeneity. There are three dimensions of semantic integration techniques considered as
relevant for the IT-Socket:
Mapping discovery: Given two ontologies/schemas, how do we find similarities
between them, determine which concepts and properties represent similar notions, and
so on.
Declarative formal representations of mappings: Given two ontologies, how do we
represent the mappings between them to enable reasoning with mappings?
Reasoning with mappings: Once the mappings are defined, what do we do with
them, what types of reasoning are involved?
With those semantic integration techniques at hand, the challenges within the IT-Socket is
tackled:
The meta model integration, which tries to integrate meta models and ontologies
The translation among models
The automatic domain ontology generation from those models
The results of these research challenges will be published on the project web-page
(www.plug-it-project.eu).

3.2 The Technical Integration

As already stated in the introduction, the aim of the NGMF is the integration of business and
Information Technology by using a model driven approach to implement the IT-Socket.
In order to bridge the gap between the two worlds, the NGMF realizes the following layers
needed to achieve the integration:
A Web Modelling Portal that acts a single point of access and integrates different
modelling services. The key concepts are portal as well as personalization.
Different Modelling Services to provide the user with the required functionality to
acquire model data, design and manage models. Business and IT modelling services
allow modelling using formal, semi-formal and text editors.
A Semantic Modelling kernel implementing model translation and integration
services, in order to bridge the gap between the different formats and standards within
and between the two domains.
A Service Oriented Modelling Framework that is based on the concept of service
orientation and consisting of:
o A modelling framework, providing the services for editing, storing and
maintaining modelling languages and models
o A service framework which allows the technical integration of the different
modelling solutions that are based on different formats, technologies, etc., by
offering a service-oriented infrastructure for modelling services.
The architecture of the NGMF is depicted in the Figure 9 providing an overview of the overall
architecture as well as its components.
 Figure 9 Overall Architecture of NGMF

Web Modelling Portal is the first layer of the architecture. It provides different functionalities,
such as: text-based modelling, graphical design of business processes, graphical design of
workflows and finally, formalisation modelling. The Web-Modelling Portal layer is connected
(via internet) to the (1) User Interface that could be a web application, a client modeller, etc.
and (2) to the Semantic Modelling Kernel.
The Semantic Modelling Kernel, the second layer of the NGMF, provides following
functional blocks: Modelling Language & Model Formalisation Service, the Modelling
Language & Model Transformation Engine, the Semantic Reference & Integration service
and Domain Specific Semantic Representation Service. The direct links (via internet) are
provided to the Web Modelling Portal and SOMF.
The Semantic Oriented Modelling Framework (SOMF) is the third layer of the NGMF.
It deals with:
Data Services: The main data services are the model base access, and the meta model
or modelling language access. Of course there might be several instances of each data
service.
Security Services: The Security Services comprises the Authorization and
Authentication Services.
Info and Accounting Services are part of the SOMF layer too.
It is worth mentioning that, even if we have written about layers, the plugIT architecture is not
stratified but it follows the general concept of SOA. The layers are conceptually defined and
help to better understand the role and the function of each identified services and components.
Additionally there are two very important building blocks of the architecture, which are the
Administration Framework and the Management Services.
The Administration Framework comprises the Installation, Deployment, Configuration,
Maintenance and Monitoring Services. Services within this block are used to handle all the
other services that compose plugIT.
The Management Services includes the Model Registry Service, the Model Service Search &
Discovery and the Model Orchestration Services.

4. Application Scenarios
Following subchapters describe the challenge for the IT-Socket in specific scenarios. First, the
IT-Socket at iTG provides a challenge to apply intelligent mechanisms in order to enable the
business and IT alignment by directing the spotlight to the certification aspects of business
processes in conjunction with IT-solutions. Second, the IT-Socket at HLRS faces the
challenge to apply intelligent mechanisms in order to enable the business and IT alignment by
focusing on dynamic provisioning of the required services based on dynamic virtualisation.
Third, the IT-Socket at CINECA, describes the aforementioned challenge by focusing on the
governance of the IT-Infrastructure. The introduced IT-Socket is applied in three different use
case partners, each with a different focus. In the following they are briefly mentioned.

4.1 IT-Socket at iTG

The deployment of large-scale enterprise systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) is typically too complex to be implemented as an “in-house” task because of their wide
scope within a certain business. Most companies, therefore, seek the help of vendors offering
the requested enterprise system, or consulting companies like iTG serving as a product
independent solution vendor. Such companies usually provide three areas of professional
support; consulting, customization, and system support.
iTG provides its consultancy services mainly to SME’s. Connecting enterprise to IT services
means designing and implementing user requirements, usually in terms of business demands
into a structure of services to be delivered to customers in order to satisfy their needs.
In more detail, iTG provides consultancy concerning business process (re-)engineering,
strategies for the underlying technological IT support and the choice of a proper enterprise
system solution, and provision of the actual system deployment considering that such systems
have usually to be customized and maintained afterwards.
While the actual design of IT infrastructure strategies belongs rather to the competence of
aligning them to the business strategy those strategies have also to be realized by concrete
hardware and software solutions. Although iTG does not offer physical devices they provide
IT services that are related to the deployment and management of hardware and software
components Being aware of the iTG’s concrete IT-Socket instantiation that is concerned with
the upper edge of the description framework in terms of assuming the existence of computing
power (e.g. CPU, network, physical data storage and the like) no matter of the actual provider,
the following section gives a more detailed description of the use case.

4.1 IT-Socket at HLRS

As of now the services provided in most computing centres in production are based on raw
resources such as computing or storage. The advances in Grid computing moving from
resource based grids such as EGEE (EGEE, 2009), UNICORE5 (UNICORE, 2009), GT2
(GT, 2009) towards service based grids is about to change this situation. HLRS is thereby
confronted with the realisation of services from a couple of building blocks (i.e. raw
resources) and compose customer specific and complex service offerings such as interactive
simulation for the automotive or aerospace industry.
The IT infrastructure underlying such services is highly specific and the hardware resources
are often “individually designed” or “individually configured”. Thereby, the range of different
IT systems spans over “small” development platforms for testing new technology over
medium sized cluster (in particular interesting for industry) up to high end computing systems
that allow offerings in High Performance Computing (HPC).
As a consequence HLRS deals with the use of leading edge technology that indeed sometimes
rise immaturity and self-developed software for many routine tasks such as collecting of
accounting data, adding users to systems, or reporting of system oriented data relevant for
administrators. Currently HPC services are moving from a niche technology for scientists or a
rather limited commercial domain such as the automotive or aerospace industry, as mentioned
above, towards a commodity tool for a wide range of industrial domains end-users of require
very different level of abstraction to consume such HPC services. The requirements range,
thereby, from direct access with low level mechanisms such as SSH or Telnet to the resource
to hardware as a services probably ensured by a Service Level Agreement such as guaranteed
environment or guaranteed latest start time.
While end-users associated with the former requirements are usually well experienced in IT,
end-users asking for hardware as a service usually express their requirements independent
from concrete IT services.
Therefore, HLRS offers competences through domain experts to support users in their
decision about the employment of HPC, hence arguing if the use of HPC is a proper solution
for certain problems. Beside this, offerings concerning optimization of user applications for
HPC or preparation of such applications of parallel execution are provided by experts of
HLRS. To actually provide users with HPC resources HLRS runs through a predefined set of
steps for acquiring user information and the required business demand such as CPU-time,
hardware environment, specific application libraries or programming languages. In this case
HLRS can be viewed as the consumer of the IT-Socket provided that the performed steps are
supported by the IT-Socket in terms of a knowledge process.
The second HLRS specific IT-Socket type is very similar with respect to the above mentioned
knowledge process. Considering the competence offering of the two types they differ in the
role of the consumer of the IT-Socket. Main characteristic to the second IT-Socket type is that
HLRS requires support in terms of an information model for service description and models
providing discovery for satisfying user demands and traceability for understanding impact on
changes in the aggregated IT service.

4.3 IT-Socket at CINECA

The quantity and the quality of the provision of computing resources and associated services
have been grown over the last ten years along with the broader user base. Today the offerings
include not only the classical support for intensive scientific computing but also a great deal
of specific services aimed to support large user communities, their organizations and their
processes.
CINECA’s primary mission is to provide support to research and academia institutions as far
as the availability of such computing resources and associated services are concerned.
Thereby, access to leading edge computing resources, specialized pre/post processing
facilities, communication and collaboration environments, and applications and tools for
administrative support is provided.
Obviously, this includes the management of large infrastructure systems and how the
evolution of these systems can be steered on a proper level of abstraction. Thereby, cost
effectiveness and competitiveness play a major role in terms of future development. In this
context IT governance appears to be a helpful tool providing rights, responsibilities, and
principles to establish transparency of management decisions, investments and procedures.
The vision is to provide a unique governance model including rules, policies, processes that
allows for managing and at the same time abstracting from physical machines or software
stacks relevant for a specific domain. Consider this, such a common unique model act as
provider for the vision of a harmonized view onto CINECA’s IT infrastructure. In this context
CINECA’s viewpoint onto the IT-Socket is rather business-oriented demanding on the
allowance of managing and discovery of infrastructure components.
In contrary to the above mentioned perspective, the finding of a correct configuration of
applications and IT infrastructure components for a given demand of CINECA’s customer is
considered as the provision of competency and technology such as large-scale enterprise
messaging systems. Thereby, such solutions cannot simply be gained in most cases as the
underlying services have to be newly designed or adapted for most customers.
Proper approaches for supporting CINECA to cope with their roles within the IT-Socket are,
therefore, requested. Before main challenges adhering to the above mentioned needs are
discussed a deeper description of the current use case is given.

4.4 IT-Socket Deployment

This chapter provides an overview on a scenario-oriented view on the system. Following use-
cases - Certification, Virtual Organisation and Governance - represent the implementation of
the IT-Socket.
Figure 10 depicts the deployment scenario of the NGMF. The different parts and services
provided by the framework are distributed on different locations. Each of the layers seen can
be deployed in a different location, furthermore the NGMF offers web access to a distributed
modelling environment – through Web Modelling Portal, featuring Business- and IT
Modelling Services, based on an infrastructure enabling the alignment of models. Each
previously mentioned use case has a specific configuration of modelling services and
modelling languages offered.

Figure 10 Deployment of the Next Generation Modelling Framework

5. Summary and Outlook

This article introduced the so-called IT-Socket that enables business and IT alignment using a
model-based approach, which is currently implemented by the consortium of the EU-project
plugIT. This project is co-funded by the European Commission and started in March 2009,
therefore this article introduced mainly the vision and the approaches of the project and only
briefly mentioned the initial results of the IT-Socket.
In parallel to the project Web-Page there will be a public Web-modelling platform that
enables to view the reference models of the three use cases and the different IT-Socket
realisation as well as enables to design an own IT-Socket.
Following the open model paradigm, this modelling portal aims to attract a community to
design an IT-Socket at the Web-modelling platform and use the executive environment
available in order to deploy the IT-Socket.
The authors would like to thank the members of Elsag Datamat, Consorzio Interuniversitario
CINECA, Innovation Technology Group SA and University of Stuttgart, High Performance
Computer Centre as members of the plugIT consortium for the cooperation of this
publication.

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