A DYNAMIC CUSTOMIZABLE ARCHITECTURE FOR SAAS BASED PLATFORM

A DYNAMIC CUSTOMIZABLE ARCHITECTURE FOR SAAS BASED PLATFORM 1 WEIZHI LIAO, 2 LINFU SUN 1 School of Electromechancal Engneerng, UESTC of Chna, Chengdu 610054, Chna 2 CAD Engneerng Center, Southwest JIAOTONG Unversty, Chengdu 610031, Chna. ABSTRACT The characterstcs of mult assocatons busness coordnaton among the enterprses n ndustry chan s frstly analyzed, and the demand of customzable busness of SaaS(Software as a servce) based platform supportng the ndustry chan coordnaton (n bref, PLATFORM) s ntensvely analyzed. Based on these, customzable busness-orented PLATFORM archtecture based on SOA s desgned n the paper, whch taes support layer as the foundaton, taes bus layer and servce layer as the core and taes customzable applcaton layer as the target. Based on the archtecture, applcaton layer can provde smple, convenent, rapd support for SaaS based busness customzaton and system applcatons, based on the rules of dynamc unon buldng, busness functons confguraton and personalzed functons confguraton. Applcaton results show that the customzable busness-orented archtecture of PLATFORM proposed n the paper can well satsfed a varety of requrements for customzable busness due to the busness characterstc ncludes varablty, dynamc and multplcty from dfferent allance enterprse n the PLATFORM. Keywords: Industry Chan, Busness Coordnaton, SaaS Based Platform, Customzable Busness, Archtecture. 1. INTRODUCTION present, to adapt to the changng needs of users, the desgn concept of the "customzaton on demand" software has been gradually on the rse, and s consdered to be the future development drecton of software ndustry[6]-[8]. However, most of the present lteratures even more concerned about programmng models, customzed software model, organzaton, etc[9]-[11]. but pay no attenton to the customzable archtecture, busness customzable rules, desgn and mplementaton of the system based on the PLATFORM. SaaS platform s a nd of thrd-part servce platform whch allocates leases and managers applcaton servce through nternet based on SaaS (Software as a Servce, SaaS) mode. As a product of ntegratng nformatzaton and servtzaton[1], SaaS platform can provde thrd-part nformatzaton support for enterprses n an ndustry chan wth advantages n resource, effcency and cost. Currently, the development of SaaS platform has become an mportant trend n manufacturng ndustry chan [1]-[4]. The development of SaaS Platform, whch s amng to support ndustral collaboraton, has acheved sgnfcant breathroughs[5]. However, t wll lose the meanng and advantages of the saas platform, f we conducted one-on-one systems development and mantenance n order to meet the needs of dfferent collaboratve busness among the dfferent allances, dfferent types of enterprses and dfferent roles of users n the collaboratve envronment of the ndustral chan whch have the dfferent, multple and dynamc characterstcs. Therefore, the queston of how to support the busness collaboraton among more than one allance and many types of enterprses by settng only one systems and ts mantenance plan becomes one of the ey ssues to be addressed. At 777 Hereby, based on the experence n development and applcaton of a product of Chnese natonal hgh-tech program,.e. the SaaS based coordnaton platform for automoble ndustry chan (n bref, PLATFORM), Focusng on the research on how to buld customzable PLATFORM to support the busness collaboraton among enterprses n multallances or cross-allances, the characterstcs of mult assocatons busness coordnaton among enterprses n ndustry chan s frstly analyzed, and the demand of customzable busness of SaaS(Software as a servce) based platform supportng the ndustry chan coordnaton (n bref, PLATFORM) s ntensvely analyzed. Based on these, customzable busness-orented PLATFORM archtecture based on SOA s desgned n the paper, whch taes support layer as the foundaton, taes bus layer and servce layer as the core and taes

customzable applcaton layer as the target. Based on the archtecture, applcaton layer can provde smple, convenent, rapd support for SaaS based busness customzaton and system applcatons, based on the rules of dynamc unon buldng, busness functons confguraton and personalzed functons confguraton. Applcaton results show that the customzable busness-orented archtecture of PLATFORM proposed n the paper can well satsfed a varety of requrements for customzable busness due to the busness characterstc ncludes varablty, dynamc and multplcty from dfferent allance enterprse n the PLATFORM. 2. CUSTOMIZABLE BUSINESS DEMANDS OF THE PLATFORM 2.1 Characterstcs of PLATFORM Support for Collaboratve Busness The ncentve of maret competton promoted socalzed cooperaton and specalzed dvson of labor of the automoble ndustry chan, n the envronment of the whole ndustry chan, t gradually formed a sngle chan and cross-chan collaboraton, whch taes the entre vehcle factory as the core. Under the cooperaton envronment of the sngle-chan, groups of supplers, dealers and servce statons tae the vehcle manufacturer as the core to carry on the collaboratve busness of purchase, sales and servce separately; Under the cooperaton envronment of the cross-chan, one collaboratve enterprse may carry on collaboratve busness wth more than one vehcle enterprse, then, multple collaboratve enterprse and multple vehcle enterprses have formed a many-to-many and crsscrossng collaboratve system. Around the collaboratve system of the sngle-chan and crosschan ndustral chan, the PLATFORM can provde the all-n-one soluton to support the automotve ndustry chan collaboraton, and the soluton s sutable for the characterstcs and needs of the socalzed collaboraton n the automotve ndustry chan, also fully demonstrate the concept of modern maretng and servces, the program can provde the comprehensve ablty ncludng large mass customzaton, socal nventory management, parts management, ntegrated management of old parts, servce-orented product support technologes, etc, whch tae the purchasng busness, servce busness and sales busness, etc as the core. Features of the PLATFORM are as follows: (1) Ablty of Supportng for the Collaboratve Busness of the Sngle allances 1) Provdng the support for the collaboratve busness tang the manufacturng enterprses as the core: supportng for "one to many" collaboratve busness around the manufacturng companes that s to provde support for one vehcle manufacturng companes to collaborate wth varous types of collaboratve enterprse, t conssts of coordnatng purchase system, coordnatng sales system and coordnatng servce system for the manufacturng companes. 2) Provdng the support for the collaboratve busness tang collaboratve enterprses as the core: supportng for "one to many" collaboratve busness around the collaboratve enterprses that s to provde support for the collaboratve busness of mult assocaton tang the collaboratve enterprses as the core, accordng to the dfferent types of collaboratve enterprses, the PLATFORM can provde supplers-orented collaboratve supply system, dealers-orented sales system and servce staton-orented servce systems. Each nd of collaboratve enterprse can carry out wor by enterng the correspondng collaboratve system accordng to the collaboratve category n a dfferent allance, the PLATFORM wll ndvdually confgure respectve collaboratve servce system for dfferent allance, the servce staton can access any one of the servce collaboratve system, at any tme and n accordance wth need to convert to the other two systems. (2) Ablty of Supportng for the Collaboratve Busness of the Mult-allances or Cross-allances The PLATFORM can provde the support of crsscrossng collaboratve busness whch spreads across to many allances, ths s the mportant characterstc whch s dstngushes between only supports the collaboratve busness of the sngleallance or only supports the nteror collaboratve busness of the sngle enterprse through the nformaton system. 2.2 The Demands of the Customzable Busness PLATFORM As the platform has to smultaneously support all the busness collaboraton among the enterprses n sngle -allance, mult-allance or cross-allance, the demand of the customzable busness PLATFORM by dfferent types of enterprses n dfferent allance are as follows: (1) The allance of the PLATFORM can be customzed: The PLATFORM provdes web-based operaton of busness collaboraton; the collaboratve content, collaboratve requrements and collaboratve protocol among enterprses n dfferent allance are not exactly the same, so the 778

PLATFORM should have the ablty of supportng the allance beng customzed. (2) The busness of the PLATFORM can be customzed accordng the type of the enterprse: In a sngle-allance, the types of collaboratve enterprses around the vehcle enterprse nclude supplers, dealers and servce statons; the collaboratve content s dfferent between dfferent types of enterprses and vehcle enterprse, so, the PLATFORM should have the ablty of supportng the busness beng customzed accordng the type of the enterprse. (3) The busness of the PLATFORM can be customzed accordng the type of the users: Snce the type of the users n one enterprse exst the features of dversty and levels, the PLATFORM should have the ablty of supportng the busness beng customzed accordng the type of the users. (4)The demand of the rapd customzaton busness functons due to dynamcs of the collaboratve relatonshps: Collaboratve wor process tang the vehcle enterprses as the core n the ndustral chan s a contnuous optmzaton process, In the collaboratve process, the vehcle enterprses can elmnate poor performance collaboratve enterprses and add new cooperatve enterprses at any tme, so that the ndustral chan can be optmzed contnuously and ts overall compettveness can be mproved[1]. Therefore, the PLATFORM should have the ablty of confgurng the correspondng busness functons fast for related enterprses accordng to the change of the collaboratve relatonshp. (5)The demand of the rapd customzaton busness functons due to dynamcs of the collaboratve content: Allance of ndustry chan collaboraton s the result of competton and proftdrven, ts cooperaton contents would change along wth the proft relatons, the competton envronment and busness development. The new collaboratve busness pont may be contnually growng; the old busness pont may be elmnated at any tme. Therefore, the PLATFORM should have the ablty of confgurng the correspondng busness functons fast for related enterprses accordng to the change of the collaboratve contents. 3. DESIGN OF THE SOA-BASED SAAS PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE ORIENTING THE DYNAMIC CUSTOMIZATION BUSINESS The SOA-based SaaS platform archtecture has been desgned to meet the needs that the platform busness can be customzed n the paper, whch can be descrbed by the support layer, the servce layer, the bus layer and applcaton layer, as shown n Fgure 1. (1) Support layer Support layer s the foundaton of SOA archtecture, t gves the statute and applcaton context, such as the descrpton of web servces, dynamc regstraton, dynamc dscovery and nvocaton, servces qualty and so on, whch maes each servce cooperate mutually n SOA. The statute of the Web servce provded by support layer nclude: XML, WSDL, SOAP, UDDI, QoS and so on. WSDL defnes a set of XML-based syntax, s to descrbe the format of the Web servce, ncludng the servce name, servce name of the machne, lsten port number, the transmsson parameter type, the nteger and the order, the type of the returns result and so on. SOAP s a smple cross-platform communcaton protocol for exchangng nformaton n a dstrbuted envronment based on an XML. SOAP defnes a messagng framewor ncludng the envelope, the encodng rules, bndng and the PRC, envelope descrbes the message content, the sender, the recever and the processng request; encodng rules represent the nstance of the data type whch servce consumer need to use; bndng defnes the underlyng communcaton protocol for message exchange; RPC s a agreement for remote procedure call and answer. UDDI s the 779

realzaton standard of nformaton regstraton center, whch used for used for centralzed storage and fndng the WSDL descrpton fle, plays the role of the drectory server. QoS s a set of crtera, rules and propertes set of servce qualty. (2) Servce layer Servce layer s bass layer supportng for system confguraton, reusable, loosely coupled and nteroperable, t s le a large pool of servce components, consstng of two broad classes of servces components,.e. publc servce components and busness servces components. Publc servces component s standardzed norms, protocols, or servce components whch "strppng" out of the system and ndependent of the specfc applcaton, Fgure1. The SOA Based SAAS Platform Archtecture 780 t ncludes user management, allance relatonshp management, securty management, communcaton servces, etc. Busness servce components nclude busness processng components and busness analyss components, Busness processng component provdes a varety of daly busness processng functons such as order submsson, dentfcaton documents audt, and three bags of settlements, stoc nventoryng, old parts management and other functons. Busness analyss components provde varous types of daly statstcs, analyss, forecastng and assessment functons such as product qualty assessment, sales trends, servce capabltes, partner evaluaton etc. Characterstcs such as ndependence and openness of the SOA based archtecture not only

enables self-developed components, thrd-party components and commercalzed components be absorbed and used by the PLTATFORM, but also but also supports the servce components for dynamc mantenance and updates. (3) Bus layer The servce bus layer s the ntegrator "of publc servce component and busness servce components, t enables varous servce components wth the pluggable way to nsert or allocate so that to meet the dfferent busness applcatons. The bus layer structure shown n Fgure2 and ts worng mechansm s as follows: Fgure2. Structure Of The Bus Layer Step1: regster servced components; post the pacaged Web Servce nterface and the descrpton nformaton (WSDL) to UDDI Center to regster. The descrpton nformaton ncludes the component dentfer, name, functon and dress and so on. Servce layer components need to be regstered before they can be appled to the platform, mantenance, and management. Step 2: submt busness request, set a busness analyss demand for DR, and clarfy ts relatonshp wth the platform publc busness and related busness processes. Step 3: tae the DR as the nput of the decsonmang support ntegraton model of the PLATFORM, and form the busness logc accordng to the platform resources ntegraton model. Step 4: soap query message s sent to the servce bus (SB) based on busness logc, and the related web servce component s quered. Step 5: after SB receves the SOAP nqury news, gans the WSDL of servces n UDDI, and creates the SOAP servce request of the requred servces, then performs the servce and reples SB the processng result by the SOAP news form, and eventually feeds bac to the busness logc. Step 6: loop step 3, 4 and 5 to realze the servce assembly, and forms a complete servce unt process. Thus, when the servce demand change causes the servce logc change, just change the requested servce, and pull out " unneeded servces or "nsert" new servces by the SB so as to realze that the busness can be customzed. (4) Applcaton layer The applcaton layer tae platform-based collaboratve busness applcatons as the goal, dependng on the needs that the busness of the platform can be customzed, provde the functons of customzed busness, rapd adjustment and personalzed applcaton management and so on for the users of dfferent Unon, dfferent types of enterprses and dfferent levels. 4. PLATFORM BUSINESS CUSTOMIZATION BASED ON BCA-SOA On the bass of the development and applcaton of analyss system of the platform, n ths secton, the busness customzaton rules have been defned and the realzaton process of the busness custom has been dscussed. 4.1Busness Customzaton Rules Based On the BCA-SOA Platform busness custom can be mplemented at the applcaton layer n the bass of the desgn of the support layer, servce layer and bus layer, whch ncludes the constructon of dynamc allances, corporate busness confguraton, user customzaton busness confguraton, the customzaton mechansm of these functons are: (1) Buld rules of the dynamc allances Because the SaaS based platform supportng the automoble ndustry chan coordnaton only taes the allance as the unon to provde busness collaboraton between enterprses, buldng unon s the frst condton that platform busness can be used by the enterprse. Leader, members and ther departments, and departmental users of a sngle unon on the PLATFORM have composed allance tree wth the shape of tree structure, because the platform supports the coordnaton busness of the mult-allances and the cross-allances, many allances composed the mutually staggered allance woods wth the branches and leaves to be luxurant, as shown n Fgure 3. The trun represents the leader of the allance, boughs represent dfferent 781

types of collaboratve partners, n the fgure, 1 represents supply collaboratve enterprses, 2 represents sale collaboratve enterprses, 3 represents servce collaboratve enterprses, 4 represents other types of enterprses, lmbs represent some allance member s dfferent departments, and the leaves represent the department users. The constructon mechansm of the allance tree n the PLATFORM s: Rule 1: the common rules. The bough of the allance woods has four nds of types, ntally, the bough s stateless, t taes state at the tme of beng mplanted nto an allance trun and wll be gven the correspondng unon flag. The smlar bough can be mplanted nto dfferent allance truns and be gven dfferent unon flag, that s, a type of bough can have more than one unon flag. Rule 2: mult-property rules. Intally, the enterprse s stateless, t wll be gven a certan type of enterprse sgns at the tme of beng added to the correspondng allance woods, the same enterprse can be gven dfferent types of sgns n an allance, and an enterprse may have more than one type of bough flag. For example, the dotted lne A ndcates that the collaboratve type of the enterprses n the allance tree 2 s both types 2 and type 3. Rule 3: dynamc portablty rules. The boughs and lmbs of the allance tree have the dynamc probablty. Any tree, any bough and any lmb n the allance woods beng removed or mplanted should not affect the structures and relatonshps of the other allance tree, that s, the lmbs and the branches can always be dynamcally transplant. Fgure3. The Shape Of The Allance Tree Structure Rule 4: Level rules. The termnal operator of the PLATFORM s the department users that are leaves. Intally, the leaves are stateless, when beng added to the allance tree; they are frstly gven departmental sgns and then are gven the sgns of enterprse type and allance, the constructon process of any allance tree should mantan the level. (2) Confguraton rules of the busness functon Rule 5: regster busness functon. All the busness functons of the PLATFORM must be regstered on the bus to be dentfed and customzed. Intally, all the busness functons are stateless, untl the busness functons are regstered on the PLATFORM, they could be gven to the types of busness functons, and the types nclude supply, sales, servce, supply analyss, sales analyss and servce analyss. Rule 6: the relatonshp between the busness processng functons and the allance. If we use B = b, b, L b θ 1} representng the { 1 2 θ set of the busness processng functons whch the enterprse of type K can operate, and use B represents the set of the busness processng functons whch the allance can operate, then B and B met such a relatonshp shown n formula (1)., B B = U 4 = 1 B B (1) Rule 7: the relatonshp between the busness analyss functons and the allance. If we use D = d, d, L d θ 1} representng the { 1 2 θ set of the busness analyss functons whch the enterprse of type K can operate, and use D representng the set of the busness analyss functons whch the allance can operate, then D and D met such a relatonshp shown n formula (2)., D D = U 4 = 1 D D (2) Rule 8: the relatonshp between the busness analyss functons and the busness processng functons. All of the busness analyss functons on the platform are carred out based on one or more of the busness processng functons. Beng regstered, the busness analyss functon wll be gven to the bndng propertes assocated wth the busness 782

processng functons. That s, each of the busness analyss functons can be bound and assocated wth more than one busness processng functons, as shown n fgure 4. Fgure4. The Busness Analyss Functons Beng Bound And Assocated Wth Busness Processng Functons Rule 9: empower users to use busness functons. Empower enterprse users to use busness functons are essentally the process of enablng the busness on the PLATFORM beng bound to the users. Intally, busness functons are stateless, and they have the state untl they are bound to an enterprse user. Intally, busness functons are stateless, and they have the state untl they are bound to an enterprse user. Frst of all, busness functons are gven the correspondng allance sgn by the admnstrator of the PLATFORM; secondly, they are gven the correspondng sgns of enterprse type by the allance chef; fnally, they are gven the correspondng user flags by the admnstrator of the enterprse. Thus, busness functons and the allance users have completed the bndng. (2) Confguraton rules of the personalzed busness Once the busnesses are confgured, the dfferent type of users wll have the dfference and personalzed characterstc n the platform applcaton functon, the platform should be generated for each user personalzaton busness applcaton nterface. As shown n fgure 5 for the confguraton rules of the personalzed busness. Step 1: user A submts the logn nformaton; Step 2: After recevng the logn request message, the platform wll query the user A s unon formaton ncludng the poston and relatons n the allance tree n the management database of the PLATFORM Step 3: the confguraton of the he user A s busness functons wll be quered accordng to the poston and the relatons of the user A n the allance tree. Step 4: comprehensve the query results of the steps 2 and 3, after jonng the correspondng nterface components such as page component, the PLATFORM wll generate dynamcally user A s applcaton nterface of the busness functon. 4.2 The Applcatons of the Busness Dynamc Customzaton Ths research result of ths paper has been appled n SaaS based platform supportng the ndustry chan coordnaton. (http://auto.easp.cn). Currently, the dynamc customzaton busness has been supported by the PLATFORM for eght allances, three types of leader enterprses and four types of collaboratve enterprses. So far, the PLATFORM has supports more than 5,000 enterprses carryng out the coordnaton busness between cross-allances. So far, one publc components lbrary ncludng user management components, collaboraton relatonshp management components, user role management components, platform montorng components, message management components, operaton log management components etc and fve types of busness component lbrary ncludng sales busness-orented components, servce busnessorented components, supply busness-orented components and analyss orented components have been establshed n the PLATFORM; based on BCA-SOA, the PLATFORM can realze varous nd of the dynamc customzaton busness for all nds of the users as easy as a la carte. Fgure5.Confguraton Process Of User Personalzaton Servce 783

5. CONCLUSION The customzable busness-orented PLATFORM archtecture based on SOA s desgned n the paper, whch taes support layer as the foundaton, taes bus layer and servce layer as the core and taes customzable applcaton layer as the target. Based on the archtecture, applcaton layer can provde smple, convenent, rapd support for SaaS based busness customzaton and system applcatons, based on the rules of dynamc unon buldng, busness functons confguraton and personalzed functons confguraton. And based on the development and applcaton practce on SaaS based platform supportng the ndustry chan coordnaton, the nstance of the dynamc unon buldng, busness functons confguraton and personalzed functons confguraton for users have been expounded n the paper. Applcaton results show that the customzable busness-orented archtecture of PLATFORM proposed n the paper can well satsfed a varety of requrements for customzable busness due to the busness characterstc ncludes varablty, dynamc and multplcty from dfferent allance enterprse n the PLATFORM. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Ths wor was supported by Natonal scence and technology support plan (Key Project) 2011BAH21B01 and Natonal 863 Plan 2012AA040913-02. REFERENCES: [1] Lnfu Sun, ASP applcaton s a ey, Manufacture Informaton Engneerng of Chna, Vol.9, No.5, 2007, pp.3. [2] Junq Yan, Dengzhe Ma, Feya Fan and Yanrong N, Research and development on ASP platform for small medum-szed enterprse nformatonzaton, Computer Integrated Manufacturng Systems, Vol.11, No.2. 2008, pp. 178-182. [3] Hujuan Zhao, Shuyng Wang and Lnfu Sun, ASP Platform for nformaton system constructon of medum and small enterprses, Computer Integrated Manufacturng Systems, Vol.10, No.11, 2004, pp.1441-1445. [4] Wezh Lao,Lnfu Sun and YuZhang, Management and Control Strategy of Multlevel User Roles Orented to ASP Dstrbuted Servce Mode, Applcaton Research of Computers, Vol.7, No.7, 2006, pp.123-126. [5] Jng Yn,Yu Zhang, and hujuan Zhao,Desgn and Realzaton of Regon Networ Manufacture ASP Platform, Applcaton Research of Computers, Vol.9, No.9, 2005, pp.214-216. [6] Schrettner Lajos, Hegedüs Péter, Ferenc Rudolf, Fülöp Lajos Jenö, Baota Tbor, Development of a methodology, softwaresute and servce for supportng software archtecture reconstructon, Proceedngs of the European Conference on Software Mantenance and Reengneerng, CSMR, 2011, pp.190-193. [7] Dn Ganluca, Savno Ida Mara, A securty archtecture for reconfgurable networed embedded systems, Internatonal Journal of Wreless Informaton Networs, Vol.17, No.1-2, 2010, pp. 11-25. [8] El Barach May, Kara Nadja, Dssoul Rachda, Towards a servce-orented networ vrtualzaton archtecture, Internatonal Telecommuncaton Unon - Proceedngs of the 2010 ITU-T Kaledoscope Academc Conference-Beyond the Internet? Innovatons for Future Networs and Servces, 2010, pp. 291-298. [9] Harb Nam, Saghr Mazen A. R., Hllal Yassn El, Attallah Rabe Ben, Dynamcally reconfgurable archtecture for a drver assstant system, Proceedngs of the 2011 IEEE 9th Symposum on Applcaton Specfc Processors, SASP 2011, 2011, pp.62-65. [10] Tbermacne Chou, Dony Chrstophe, Sadou Salah, Fabresse, Luc, Software archtecture constrants as customzable, reusable and compassable enttes, Lecture Notes n Computer Scence (ncludng subseres Lecture Notes n Artfcal Intellgence and Lecture Notes n Bonformatcs), v 6285 LNCS, 2010, pp.505-509. [11] Salgado F, Garca P, Gomes T, Cabral J, Mendes J, Epanyapong M, Tavares A, A customzable processor archtecture for a desgn space exploraton framewor, 2012 IEEE Internatonal Conference on Industral Technology, ICIT 2012, Proceedngs, 2012, pp.129-133. 784