1. A FRAMEWORK FOR ENGINEERING ENTERPRISE AGILITY
Abd Rahman Mokhtar
Martin Hanneghan
Madjid Merabti
School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Liverpool John Moores University
United Kingdom
ABSTRACT able to remain or be competitive and will fall by
the wayside (Merabti et al, 1999). It is the
Central to engineering enterprise agility is the enterprise’s information systems that provide it
ability to meaningfully share and communicate with its institutional memory and its “nervous
information between enterprise systems. Such a system” (Gates, 1999), (Ryan, 1997). If, as the
characteristic enables the agile enterprise to enterprise grows and adapts, its information
possess the capabilities and processes to allow systems cannot adapt with it, the growth of the
the enterprise to respond to and master change, entire organisation is impeded.
and hence achieving and maintaining
competitiveness. In this paper, we present a Many key technologies have emerged that
novel framework for engineering enterprise promote the development and implementation of
agility. The framework encompasses the idea of more effective and adaptable information systems.
ontology viewpoint, i.e. a viewpoint that is These provide the context for enterprise
committed to “an explicit specification of a development and contribute to enhancing the
conceptualisation”. The framework also involves agility of the enterprise, a crucial capability to
the provision of an appropriate middleware and enable enterprises to respond and master change
multiagent environment in supporting the and hence achieving and maintaining
execution of distributed processes and their competitiveness.
automation. The paper presents our proposed One of the most significant key technologies is
preliminary architecture and its components. The the development of intelligent desktop client
former utilises the ubiquitous HTTP protocol of workstations and networking infrastructures such
the World Wide Web, in enabling accessibility as the Internet and the World Wide Web. This
and connectivity of the architectural components has put more processing power in the hands of the
via a middleware environment. The integration end-users as well as enabling distributed
of ontology, viewpoints, and agent-middleware processing among multiple computing resources.
based environment is pursued by utilising open The development and growth of these enterprise
standards in programmatic and metalanguage systems are, however, characterised by complex
support, thereby enhancing component and chaotic manifestation of platforms, languages
interactivity and connectivity. The framework, and proprietary environments. The network and
thus, promotes semantic interoperability and protocols underlying and connecting these
coherence and the subsequent growth and agility systems might be just as diverse. This
of heterogeneous and distributed enterprise heterogeneity that is prevalent in an enterprise’s
systems. information systems is due to factors such as
engineering trade-offs, which arise from the
KEYWORDS absence of an acceptable solution to a complex
Enterprise, agility, ontology, viewpoints, agents, engineering problem; accumulation of legacy
middleware. systems over time; and varying system costs
(Vinoski, 1997).
1. INTRODUCTION As an enterprise employs the available
In an era of intense global competition, information systems resources for a wide range of
enterprises that more effectively meet a client’s activities that include distributed database
need using fewer resources than their competitors transactions and information interchange, the need
will thrive, while those who cannot, will not be for software agents in the automation of the tasks

2. involved is much desired. These software agents refined (Guarino, 1998), as a logical theory
may play autonomous roles within a middleware accounting for the intended meaning of a formal
environment (Bernstein, 1996) – an environment vocabulary (not necessarily) as part of a logical
that provides a middle platform that holds language. The ontology of an enterprise,
together the various elements or components of constructed through the processes of
distributed and heterogeneous enterprise systems. conceptualisation and explication of the
Within such environments, the software agents conceptualisation, will therefore present itself as a
may be implemented to enable automation of, for framework for modelling of and shared
example, data translation and transformation; understanding between, the various aspects of the
brokering between users, other software agents enterprise.
and information resources; validation or
Furthermore, the construction of a complex
maintenance within and between resources; as
description or model associated with an enterprise
well as presentation of information to users.
or system involves many stakeholders or
The communication between systems in a participants and these participants would have
distributed and heterogeneous environment different views of the system they are trying to
requires the unhindered ability to meaningfully describe or model within the domain of discourse.
share information. However, in large and The combination of the participant and the view
complex systems, such ability is suppressed since that the participant holds is said to be a viewpoint
the meaning of information can be drastically (Sommerville, 1995).
affected by the context in which it is viewed and
An enterprise information model is logically
interpreted. The development of an ontology of
composed of a number of discrete components
domain concepts and terms, along with their
which, when synthesised, produce the whole
respective formal and unambiguous definitions,
model. For example, in manufacturing, the
potentially provides the basis to meaningfully
accommodation of needs of various departments
share information. An ontology is defined as “an
such as designs, materials, suppliers, stock
explicit specification of a conceptualisation”
control, finance, logistics, etc. is necessary to
(Gruber, 1995). The “conceptualisation” involved
support its business objectives. As the enterprise
is an abstract, simplified worldview (i.e. the
information requirements change or evolve, new
global set of concepts, their definitions and inter-
viewpoints arise, each being uniquely
relationships), that represents the domain of
characterised by the combinatory state of the
discourse. The definition of an ontology is further
participant and the view, as depicted in Figure 1.
P a r tic ip a n t A M a n u fa c t u r in g E n t e r p r is e
M a t e r ia ls
V ie w
S u p p lie r s
D e s ig n
( A ) A v ie w p o in t is a c o m b in a t io n o f t h e p a r tic ip a n t a n d t h e v ie w t h a t t h e p a r t ic ip a n t h o ld s .
( B ) T h r e e d if fe r e n t v ie w p o in t s t a te s , in s t a n tia t e d a s a fu n c tio n o f t h e p a r tic ip a n t a n d v ie w .
F ig u re 1 . D iff e re n t e n te rp r is e v ie w p o in ts

3. The application of viewpoint analysis during, for oriented hierarchies, as well as allowing
example, the early stages of elicitation or consuming applications to check data for
extraction of enterprise system requirements is structural validity during processing. These
one area of system development where many capabilities enable the prospect of data or
diverse client views are prevalent (Hanneghan et knowledge interchange in expressing, for
al., 2000). example, an enterprise content model and its
semantics. Furthermore, horizontal-enterprise
Ontologies can be used as a means to capture
applications, such as software distribution,
precisely information that needs to be delivered
searching/filtering, and e-commerce, in addition
from one system to another. It is the precise and
to vertical-enterprise applications, such as health-
unambiguous specification of ontologies that can
care, manufacturing, and education, can utilise the
enable systems to interoperate effectively and
XML standard in attempting to achieve
efficiently. However, herein lies the problem:
sustainable global interoperability (Smith and
ontologies that completely capture the essence of
Poulter, 1999) e.g. the implementation of
an enterprise are almost impossible to describe.
business-specific tasks across domains. Major
The number of unique facets of an enterprise is
Information Technology solution providers such
just too great to enumerate and the subtleties in
as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard are developing
interpretation of each facet give rise to
frameworks for e-commerce using the power of
ambiguities that render the ontology unusable in
XML (e.g. BizTalk from Microsoft and ESpeak
all but the simplest situations. In our research,
from Hewlett Packard).
viewpoints are utilised to aid the construction of
an ontology, as it provides an initial context or Middleware architectures are increasingly used in
starting point for the identification of key the network-centric, Internet-savvy environment
concepts and relationships in the domain of in an attempt to host robust business logic,
interest. balance distribution of processing, provide
complex and rapid data access, manage persistent
2. BACKGROUND state and session, and provide guaranteed and
reliable processing. Middleware is typically
Most documents on the World Wide Web are
divided into five basic categories: transaction
constructed using markup language representation
processing middleware, which provides
(Bosak, 1997) that is based on an open standard
distributed transaction monitoring, management,
namely Standard Generalised Markup Language,
load balancing, and fail-over across multiple data
SGML (ISO 8879) (Goldfarb, 1997). The current
sources; message-oriented middleware (MOM),
widely used markup language (namely Hypertext
which provides asynchronous communications
Markup Language, HTML) is a simple SGML
and guaranteed delivery of messages or events
language variant that is well suited for small and
between applications across the network; object
reasonably simple documents. However, as web
request brokers (ORBs), which provide
documents have become larger and more
communication pipelines among software
complex, web content providers have begun to
components that make up a distributed system;
experience the limitations of a medium that does
data access middleware (Hanneghan et al., 1998),
not provide the extensibility, structure, and
which provides efficient and rapid access to
validation needed for large-scale distributed
heterogeneous data sources; and application
information processing (Hanneghan et al., 1996).
servers, which provide extensible platforms for
Recent efforts to introduce new standards such as
assembling, deploying, and managing distributed
Resource Definition Format (RDF) (Lassila et al.,
applications, connecting software components
1999) have yet to achieve widespread acceptance.
with heterogeneous databases and network
The next generation markup language variant resources. CORBA (the Common Object Request
(namely Extensible Markup Language, XML) Broker Architecture) (Maffeis and Schmidt,
(Bray et al., 1998), (Mace et al., 1998) addresses 1997), (Siegel, 1998) and the Java Remote
the issues described above. Its extensibility Method Invocation (RMI) programming model
enables users to specify their own tags or (Singhal and Nguyen, 1998), (Waters, 1998) are
attributes in order to parameterise or semantically representative of object request broker and
qualify the information to be processed. There is application servers middleware, respectively.
support for specification of the deep structures Furthermore, the development and deployment of
needed to represent database schemas or object- middleware environment can be pursued as

4. component-based, whereby the building of identification of key concepts and relationships in
software systems is carried out using pre- the domain of interest; production of precise
packaged generic elements (Meyer and Mingins, unambiguous text definitions for such concepts
1999). These elements or components when and relationships; identification of terms to refer
written in Java to the Enterprise Java specification to such concepts and relationships; and finally
(are known as Enterprise JavaBeans) have the agreeing on all of the above. In order to aid the
ability to communicate using Java RMI or utilisation of the ontology, the explicit
CORBA Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP), and representation of the conceptualisation will need
utilise Enterprise Java services. McFall (1998) to be expressed in some formal language.
discusses the interplay between Java-enabled Web
Blàzquez et al. (1998), describes the
clients, CORBA, Web servers, and backend
METHONTOLOGY framework, a framework
systems (such as application and transaction
that enables the construction of ontologies at the
systems) as part of a model that assumes universal
knowledge level and includes: the identification
connectivity, distributed environment, and cross-
of the ontology development process, a life cycle
platform interoperation.
based on evolving prototypes, a method for
The use of software agents, as individually specifying ontologies at the knowledge level and
autonomous software entities to hide the multilingual translators that automatically
distribution and complexity problems is described transform the specification into several target
by Laufmann (1997) with the focus especially on codes.
the practical issues that are commonly faced in
The use of an ontology in the context of an
distributed and heterogeneous enterprise
enterprise is further discussed by Uschold et al.
environments. Additionally, effective
(1997), whereby a glossary of terms pertinent to
communication of knowledge between agents in
an enterprise, are expressed in a restricted and
distributed and heterogeneous enterprise
structured form of natural language supplemented
environment needs to be based on a common
with a few formal axioms. The ontology
understanding of terms contained in the messages
described has five top-level classes for integrating
passed between agents in the environment. Jones
the various aspects of an enterprise, consisting of
(1998) discusses the construction of a shared
metaontology; activities and processes;
ontology, as one of the main stages in the
organisation; strategy; and marketing.
development of a multiagent system. Jain et al.
(1999) expands the multiagent metaphor further in The range of ontology-based work pertaining to
describing the multiagent system as a sphere of enterprise modelling is reviewed by Fox and
commitment which encapsulates the promises and Gruninger (1998), who introduce the concept of a
obligations the agents may have toward each generic enterprise model (GEM) and extend that
other. By employing flexible commitments, their to the concept of a deductive enterprise model
approach allows the commitments to be (DEM). The former model essentially describes
manipulated in various ways. Thus, for example, an object library that defines the classes of objects
besides the ability to create and discharge that are generic across a type of enterprise, such
commitments, agents are allowed, although as manufacturing (Schlenoff et al., 1998), and can
cannot be wantonly performed, to cancel be used or instantiated in defining a specific
commitments. Such flexibility can furthermore enterprise pertaining to the latter model.
be empowered to mobile agents. These agents The analysis of an enterprise displaying a
that are created in one execution environment, can complex structure and with many interlocking
transport their states and codes, as discussed by constraints on their construction and behaviour,
Wong et al. (1999), to another execution necessitates, for example, multiple viewpoints for
environment where they can resume tasks. The complexity control and separation of concerns.
migration of state and codes of the agents can, for The use of a viewpoint method at the
example, be facilitated by an open middleware requirements stage of systems development is
environment. exemplified in the work of Kotonya and
Uschold and Gruninger (1996) provides a general Sommerville (1996). Their service oriented
introduction to the design and use of ontologies viewpoint method takes into account both the
and outlines both informal and formal end-user and organisational considerations, in
methodology for developing and evaluating them. generating system requirements. Sommerville et
The process of building an ontology involves al. (1998) further discusses a practical and flexible

5. approach in eliciting and validating system that possesses the capabilities and processes that
requirements, by introducing the notion of allow the enterprise to respond and master change
concerns as global high-level criteria that are used - an enterprise that has the ability to continuously
as drivers of the requirements elicitation process. monitor market demands; quickly respond by
The conceptual relationship between concerns and providing new products, services and information;
viewpoints as a sociotechnical pyramid is quickly introduce new technologies; and quickly
depicted in Figure 2. These concerns, potentially, modify business methods (Nagel and Dove,
affect every aspect of the system. 1991).
S a fe ty c o n c e rn C o m p a t ib ilit y c o n c e r n
A t t h e a p e x o f th e p y r a m id
E q u ip m e n t a r e th e v ie w p o in t s w h ic h in t e r a c t
v ie w p o in t d ir e c t ly w it h t h e s y s t e m . A t it s
b a s e a r e th o s e v ie w p o in t s w h ic h
O p e r a to rs h a v e t h e m o s t in d ir e c t a s s o c ia tio n
v ie w p o in t w it h th e s y s te m , b u t n e v e r t h e le s s
h a v e a s ta k e in it .
S u p e r v is o r s
v ie w p o in t
O r g a n is a t io n
v ie w p o in t
S o c io - p o lit ic a l e n v ir o n m e n t
v ie w p o in t
F ig u r e 2 . R e la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n c o n c e r n s a n d v ie w p o in ts a s a s o c io te c h n ic a l p y r a m id
Mannion et al. (1998) describes the use of 3. CURRENT WORK
viewpoints to define domain requirements that
With the proliferation of distributed and
take into consideration the reusability of the
heterogeneous computing facilities and
requirements against the background of overlap of
infrastructures, an enterprise’s information
domain requirements due to the presence of
systems are continuously depended upon to bring
multiple systems and multiple users. The authors’
about constructive changes in many domains
VORD (viewpoint-oriented domain requirements
(King and Tester, 1999). The growing
definition) method consists of four steps: scope
complexity of enterprise information and the
the domain, characterise the domain, document
increasing necessity to communicate and
the viewpoints, and analyse the viewpoints. The
exchange this information, however, hinges on the
outputs from this method serve as inputs to the
requirement for an unhindered ability to
rest of the domain engineering process.
meaningfully share information. As a first step
From an operations perspective, the aspects of towards addressing the current lack of such
domain modelling and process engineering must semantic interoperability across multiple
be able to supply information and knowledge platforms and processing environments, our
necessary to support the tasks and operations of research develops a framework based on the
the enterprise. These would need to be notion of “ontology-driven information systems”
streamlined and integrated to enable the enterprise (Guarino, 1998). This provides a context for
to be agile and hence remains competitive, that is, enterprise systems to be integrated across their
the ability to produce products and services that functions, and hence the framework for
are of consistently high quality throughout the engineering enterprise agility.
product/service's life, customised to market needs,
The scope and scenario of our research activities
open in that they may be integrated with other
is depicted in Figure 3. The research stressed the
product/services, environmentally benign, and
importance of the use of ontology in an
technically advanced. An agile enterprise is one

6. D is t r ib u t e d & H e t e r o g e n e o u s E n te r p r is e S y s t e m s
A n e n t e r p r is e , a s w e ll a s o th e r s y s t e m s s u c h a s
X a n d Y in d ic a te d h e r e , a r e g e n e r ic r e p r e s e n t a t io n
o f t h e c o m p o n e n ts o f th e d is tr ib u t e d a n d V ie w p o in t
h e t e r o g e n e o u s e n v ir o n m e n t . M o d e llin g
S y s te m M u lt ia g e n t S y s t e m a n d A n a ly s is
X
P a rti-
c ip a n t
C a p t u r in g v ia
S y s te m M a r k u p L a n g u a g e V a ria n t
Y
W o r ld V ie w
M id d le w a r e
V ie w V ie w V ie w
A D G
V ie w V ie w V ie w V ie w V ie w V ie w
B C E F H I
O n to lo g y α O n to lo g y β O n to lo g y γ
O n to lo g ic a l R e p r e s e n ta tio n
A n E n te r p r is e
F ig u re 3 . R e s e a rc h s c o p e a n d s c e n a r io
interdisciplinary and integrated setting, i.e. in with the system by sending and receiving
conjunction with the utilisation and development messages. The stimulus obtained from an
of concepts derived from a range of contemporary incoming message is represented by a use case
areas of interest, such as: open metalanguage scenario which expresses a specific functionality
support for information exchange, viewpoint- of the system.
oriented modelling and analysis, middleware
The exposure of system functionalities through
environment, and multiagent paradigm.
use cases can thus provide a mechanism for
viewpoints to be constructed. The set of human
3.1 Ontological Representation readable description of terms, concepts, and
Our research investigates the ontological relations within the viewpoints relates or maps to
representation of a distributed and heterogeneous a number of aspects of ontology development,
enterprise. The ontology, as part of a world view, such as type, subject, and purpose of ontology;
provides the basis to model the enterprise and scope in relation to notions that includes number
meaningfully share information between the of concepts representing classes, number of
various facets of the enterprise. Of equal interest concepts representing instances, number of
at this research stage is the investigation of the explicit axioms, number of class concepts per
explicit relationship between ontological hierarchy level, etc. Thus the outcome of this
structures of an enterprise and the generation of initial stage is the ontological representation of
viewpoints. For a given viewpoint state, the the distributed and heterogeneous enterprise
participant is regarded as an actor or class type pertaining to its structure, activities, processes,
rather than an instance, the participating entity as information, resources, people, behaviours, goals,
well as being an external entity to the system, and organisational constraints. It provides a
represents a role or a number of roles in the vocabulary of terms and relations with which a
enterprise or system. The actor communicates domain can be modelled.

7. Additionally, our utilisation of a visual modelling important measure in evaluating the process of
language such as the Object Management Group's integrating disparate enterprise systems.
(OMG) Unified Modelling Language (UML)
facilitates the domain modelling process. UML 3.2 Capturing via Markup Language
provides a visual expression of domain models, in Variant
terms of object-oriented diagrams that are:
accurately descriptive of the system to be built; The ontology can be parameterised using an open
consistent in avoiding conflicts between domain metalanguage for markup with support for
views e.g. the use case view and concurrency extensibility, structure and validation. The
view (the view that relates to the non-functional development of a markup language variant in
property of the system); and convenient to representing the captured ontology in expressing
communicate to users and be amenable to change an enterprise model provides a framework for
(Eriksson and Penker, 1998). semantic interoperability in enabling data or
knowledge interchange over a network
Furthermore the use of UML in representing infrastructure such as the World Wide Web.
enterprise conceptualisation provides a
diagrammatic expression of the ontology (e.g. in We utilise XML as the deployment standards in
terms of class diagrams) which then facilitates the markup language based capturing process.
the process of modelling and identifying The listing below (Listing 1) exemplifies the use
mismatches between ontologies, and the of XML in capturing some ontological
assessment of enterprise heterogeneity (Visser et representation of a Marketing Department of an
al., 1998). Enterprise. In essence the XML-based
deployment allow user-defined markup elements
The level of enterprise heterogeneity and ontology to qualify data and its structure, in expressing a
mismatches and their contextual trade off with the particular knowledge domain.
need for interoperability, for example, provides an
< ? x m l V e rs io n = " 1 .0 " ? >
< ! D O C T Y P E e n t e r p r is e [
< !E L E M E N T e n te r p r is e ( m a r k e t in g ) >
< !E L E M E N T m a r k e t in g ( c u s t o m e r, p r o d u c t , s a le ) >
< !E N T IT Y % c u s to m e r P U B L IC " h ttp ://e _ c o m _ o rg .c o m /c .d td " >
< !E N T IT Y % p r o d u c t S Y S T E M " p .d td " >
< !E N T IT Y % s a le P U B L IC " h tt p : // e _ c o m _ o r g .c o m / s . d t d " >
]>
< e n te rp ris e >
< m a r k e t in g
< c u s to m e r >
< !- - f u r t h e r c o n t e n t a n d s t r u c t u r e c o n f o r m in g to c . d td , a s e x e m p lif ie d b e lo w - - >
< p o t e n tia l_ c u s to m e r > … < /p o t e n tia l_ c u s to m e r >
< a c t u a l_ c u s t o m e r > … < / a c t u a l_ c u s t o m e r >
< /c u s to m e r >
< p ro d u c t>
< !- - f u r t h e r c o n t e n t a n d s t r u c t u r e c o n f o r m in g to p . d t d , a s e x e m p lif ie d b e lo w - - >
< m a r k e t_ p r o d u c t> … < /m a r k e t_ p r o d u c t>
< m a n u fa c tu re d _ p r o d u c t> … < /m a n u fa c tu r e d _ p r o d u c t>
< p ro d u c t>
< s a le >
< !- - f u r t h e r c o n t e n t a n d s t r u c t u r e c o n f o r m in g to s . d td , a s e x e m p lif ie d b e lo w - - >
< fo r _ s a le > … < / f o r _ s a le >
< s a le _ o f fe r > … < /s a le _ o f fe r >
< /s a le >
< /m a r k e tin g >
< / e n t e r p r is e >
L is tin g 1 . A n e x a m p le o f a n X M L d o c u m e n t

8. The processing of the XML document is carried recommendation (Bray et al, 1998) does not
out by a parser, commonly with a compulsory specify which API to use. Our research utilises a
well-formedness and an optional validation widely available API for XML processing known
checking capability. as the XML Document Object Model (DOM)
specification (Apparao, 1998). The above-
A well-formed XML document is one that
mentioned XML deployment process is depicted
possesses properly structured markup syntax, e.g.
in Figure 4.
the pairs of opened and closed tags or tags are
nested properly. A validated XML document is Via the DOM interfaces, for example, a tree
one that conforms to a schema construct or representation of the XML document is exposed,
document type declaration, DTD (the section with whereby every construct in the XML document,
<!DOCTYPE …]> in Listing 1). The DTD, such as an element or an attribute, is represented
which may either be internally or externally as a node in the tree. The tree representation is
defined (i.e. pointed by the ENTITY XML designed with object-oriented principles that
keywords), provides the rules for constructing the provides the advantage of object encapsulation
structure of an XML document. and reusability. Each node has its own set of
C o n s u m in g A p p lic a t io n
F u r th e r p ro c e s s in g /
D O M In te rfa c e
XM L No
D ocum ent
W e ll Yes Yes Yes
fo rm e d ? DTD? V a lid it y ?
DTD
No No
I s s u e w a r n in g / s to p p r o c e s s in g
F ig u r e 4 . X M L d e p lo y m e n t p r o c e s s
The processed document containing the methods and properties, and inherits functionality
information to be exchanged, e.g. the captured from a base class, including common
ontologies and their pertinent DTDs can then be functionality such as navigation through the tree
made available to consuming applications. The and manipulation of contents of the nodes.
DTD captured ontologies may be derived from
Irrespective of the inclusion of an interface for the
heterogeneous and distributed sources, each
purpose of exposing XML document as a tree-like
related to the representation of explicit
structure of nodes that possesses properties and
specification of conceptualisation. In essence our
methods to consuming applications, our research
open metalanguage capturing process exposes the
also investigates the use of templates or
distributed architecture of ontologies while
stylesheets to present different views of the XML
allowing validation of extensibility processes such
document. One particular XML-based stylesheet
as accommodation of emergent viewpoints and
language for stylesheets definition is the
ontologies.
Extensible Markup Language Stylesheet
Furthermore, the inclusion of an additional layer Language (XSL) (Clark, 1999). By adopting the
of abstraction, in the form of application use of stylesheets, we are able to reuse data in
programming interfaces (API), between the XML defining presentation semantics by: transforming
document and the application, provides methods the source XML document to multiple output
and properties to access and manipulate an XML formats such as HTML, Rich Text Format (RTF),
document. Legacy systems can also use these or other forms of markup language systems; and
interfaces to provide access to legacy data as if performing dynamic customisation of presentation
the data was natively stored in XML (Ceponkus for user preferences. The XML/XSL deployment
and Hoodbhoy, 1999). The XML 1.0 process is depicted in Figure 5.

9. XM L
D ocum ent
XSL
S ty le s h e e t
( fo r m a t t r a n s fo r m a t io n )
X S L a w a re B ro w s e r a n d
C lie n t /S e r v e r - s id e
A p p lic a tio n
HTM L RTF O th e r M a rk u p
O u tp u t O u tp u t Languages
O u tp u t
F ig u re 5 . X M L /X S L d e p lo y m e n t p ro c e s s
In summary, our research is investigating the use 3.3 Viewpoint Modelling and
of appropriate markup elements and qualifiers, Analysis
and the construction of DTDs, in order to support
generic enterprise model and deduced enterprise The resulting markup language-based ontology
model requirements, as well as enabling information resource may be expressed in terms
programmatic interfaces to architectural of many different viewpoint states. Our research
component, consuming applications, and their addresses a wide range of pertinent issues to the
services. analysis of the viewpoints, including the
construction of a novel viewpoint model that
Additionally, our use of UML and object-oriented would accommodate the ontological aspects of the
paradigm at the ontology representation phase is enterprise; identification of potential viewpoints
extended to include the modelling of and their relevance to the ontology; the manner in
metalanguage capturing phase. In our research, which ontology influences the consistency of
the mapping of domain knowledge (as qualified viewpoint specifications; and managing
by the ontology) to the metalanguage information from these ontology viewpoints. In
representation (as exemplified by the use XML essence, the ontology viewpoints are regarded as
with DOM interface) provides an integrated viewpoints that are committed to “an explicit
modelling solution as well as generation of code specification of conceptualisation”.
skeletons as a base for the implementation phase.
This can be further supplemented with user- Our research investigates the potential extension
centric customisation of views or presentation of the model described in (Sommerville et al.,
involved (as exemplified by the use of XSL). The 1998) and aims to establish the role of ontology in
modelling or code generation environment can structuring, analysing, and modelling viewpoints
furthermore be integrated with other development and their interactions. The conceptual
environments such as agent and problem solving relationship for our viewpoint model is shown in
or domain-oriented development tools. Figure 6.

10. C o n c e rn s
B o t h , c o n c e r n s a n d v ie w p o in ts ,
a r e c o m m it t e d to t h e u n d e r ly in g o n t o lo g y .
V ie w p o in t χ
V ie w p o in t δ
V ie w p o in t ε
O n to lo g y
F ig u r e 6 . C o n c e p tu a l r e la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n c o n c e r n s , v ie w p o in ts , a n d o n to lo g y
3.4 Middleware Support infrastructure such as the Internet and World
Wide Web; middleware server environment;
A middleware support framework is utilised as a ontology editor, repositories, processor and
platform to hold the various distributed and translator; viewpoint/domain-oriented services;
heterogeneous components together. and agent-oriented services. The architecture, as
Additionally, the middleware support framework depicted in Figure 7, is further discussed below.
aids software agents to enact their roles
autonomously in the distributed and The user/client connectivity to the World Wide
heterogeneous environment. The framework Web utilises the ubiquitous hypertext transfer
facilitates the potential migration of states and protocol (HTTP) for exchanging files on the
codes of the software agents (Wong et al., network infrastructure. This method of
1999) in achieving flexibility of execution of connectivity allows for web editing and browsing-
agent processes in the distributed and based implementations (such as editing and
heterogeneous environment. The architecture, browsing of ontologies), as well as Transmission
considered in the context of current research and Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)-
its conceptual components, consists of the based transport of messages between systems and
following main parts: connectivity to a network architectural components.
A g e n t - o r ie n te d
S e r v ic e s
V ie w p o in t / D o m a in
- o r ie n te d S e r v ic e s
O n to lo g y
HTTP
U s e rs M id d le w a r e E d it o r
O n to lo g y
R e p o s ito rie s
F ig u re 7 . A rc h ite c tu re in th e c o n te x t o f th e re s e a rc h a n d its c o n c e p tu a l c o m p o n e n ts

11. Critically, the middleware server implementation need for shared ontology in supporting
behaves as an extensible, persistent host in data/knowledge translation and transformation
providing support for the distributed environment processes.
in dealing with e.g. transaction management, load
balancing, seamless accessibility and connectivity 3.5 Multiagent System
between architectural components and
Software agents are used to automate the tasks of
heterogeneous systems including enterprise
participating entities. For such a multiviewpoint
applications and databases. Furthermore, an open
system, a multiagent representation is being
implementation, e.g. using the Java RMI
generated. To enable effective communication of
technology/XML open standards, aided by a
knowledge between the agents, an appropriate
distributed object paradigm, enables component
shared ontology is utilised to support the inter-
reusability and open interface in achieving e.g.
agent communication (Jones, 1998). Our research
desired system interoperability, integration and
on the accommodation of shared ontology looks
extensibility.
into its structural composition and how that can be
The ontology editor enables the construction of derived from the assumed ontology viewpoints
ontology as per domain. More importantly, the model. Additionally, the implementation of
ontology capturing process is governed by software agents accommodates the metalanguage
construction rules or mapping implemented using representation of the shared ontology. The
the XML metalanguage standards described research is investigating the requirements
earlier. The research utilises appropriate markup involved in such metalanguage support in
elements and qualifiers, i.e. through the facilitating inter-agent communication, e.g. in
construction of DTDs, in order to support generic comparison to the use of other prominent agent
enterprise model and deduced enterprise model communication languages (ACLs) such as the
requirements, as well as enabling programmatic Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language
interfaces to architectural component, consuming (KQML) and the ACL of the Foundation for
applications, and their services. Intelligent and Physical Agents (FIPA) (Singh,
1998).
The construction rules and captured ontologies are
stored in repositories which are necessarily
required to support extensibility and connectivity 3.6 Integration
of the database of ontologies. In our research, in order to facilitate integration of
The ontology processor provides well-formedness the conceptual components of ontology,
and validity checking of captured ontologies viewpoints, and agent-middleware based support
against adopted construction rules, prior to framework we employ the open published
allowing global accessibility of the captured standard of CORBA for system interoperability
ontologies via the ontology translator. As and within a distributed infrastructure, with support
when required, the ontology translator supports for standard services including directory,
mapping processes between and within ontologies transactions and security. The CORBA based
for validation and consistency checking infrastructure generally provides support for
(including ontology mismatches); and between applications implemented in a range of
ontologies and format requirements of the programming languages (e.g. C++, Java, C, and
consuming applications and their services. COBOL) and distributed system requirements,
such as distribution, location, and networking
In the research, the consuming applications and transparency.
their services are perceived as agents and
viewpoint/domain-oriented, whose operations are With the availability of Java Virtual Machines
enhanced via semantic transactions and (JVM) on environments, such as Microsoft
interoperability enabled by the captured Windows, IBM OS/2, and Apple Macintosh, we
ontologies and facilitated by the middleware utilise Java technology, e.g. Enterprise JavaBeans
services described earlier. programming as the means of writing portable
and component-based application codes.
Additionally, our research investigates the
responsiveness of the middleware support The selection of CORBA as the integration
framework to accommodate the requirements of infrastructure and provision of standard services,
distributed ontology viewpoint services, e.g. the ensures that Java (technology) as well as other
application environments, such as Microsoft

12. proprietary Component Object Model (COM), can • elimination of duplication of system
then be successfully integrated. services and rationalising engineering and
The component-based solution is able to business processes.
accommodate and integrate existing (legacy) as • design and implementation of a solution that
well as new applications and services in achieving can scale easily to accommodate growth of
desired functionality such as levels of availability, the enterprise as well as possessing
performance, and reliability of the integrated integration capability with other services,
system. thereby increasing enterprise productivity
and lowering costs.
4. DISCUSSIONS
The novelty of our research and the simplicity of 5. CONCLUSION
the architecture provide a generic framework for a The globalisation of enterprise activities is fuelled
wide range of technological implementations. by the world-wide wave of the liberalisation of
One emerging area in terms of meeting trade, investment and capital flow. This is further
particularly the needs of an agile enterprise is aided by the very rapid development of
enterprise application integration (EAI). The communication and information networks, the fast
central theme of EAI is to achieve effective development of computer based production
integration of one system with another, whether technologies and structures, and the spread of
new or legacy systems. market-oriented economies, among others. The
The conceptual and architectural components of global economic environment affects all
our research provides a platform to enable an enterprises, whether they be catering to just the
open EAI (OEAI) through the integration of domestic markets or to international markets
ontology-driven systems implemented by open (Prokopenko, 1999). One manifestation of the
standards in programmatic and metalanguage increasing pace of globalisation is the
support. Such systems are characterised by a intensification of competitiveness within and
number of factors, including: accessibility from across national boundaries; with competition
an Internet/web based infrastructure; support for increasing not only for international and domestic
ontology-driven enterprise/business processes markets of products and services but also in
against the background of constant change of attracting the increasingly mobile investments and
viewpoints and domain-oriented requirements; capital.
support for distributed transactions; reusable Increasingly, the productivity of enterprises,
component implementation and integration; which are set against the background of complex,
system availability, performance, and reliability; distributed and heterogeneous environment, is
and security service requirements. limited not by labour or capital, but by
Through OEAI, the integration of complex and information (Barbuceanu and Fox, 1994). For
often disparate systems, i.e. within a distributed example, the enterprise facets of supply,
and heterogeneous environment, enables production, assembly, distribution, and end
enterprises to derive a number of important customer need to be sewn together from a system
advantages. These advantages in the context of integration perspective, motivated by both the
engineering enterprise agility and hence enterprise’s stakeholders and its information
supporting the capability for an enterprise to be systems development.
competitive are: The achievement of desired semantic
• enhancing semantic interoperability between interoperability between enterprise systems must
systems, and automation of domain-oriented necessarily be in parallel with the effort to
(e.g. enterprise-critical) processes, while streamline the physical flow of the enterprise and
exploiting and harmonising enterprise the integration of its processes. This, in turn
resources. provides viewpoint or domain-oriented
information and services as well as problem
• extending applications to more customers solving methods that are responsive or agile to
and product users and improving clientele competitiveness requirements, such as satisfying
services (e.g. over a global or network- customer or market demands through the
centric scale) and satisfying their provision of high quality product or services in
requirements. the shortest time possible. The framework

13. presented in this paper, which involves the Gates, B., (1999). Business @ the Speed of
notions of ontology, viewpoint, and agent- Thought, Penguin Books, UK.
middleware based environment, provides an
Goldfarb, C. F., (1997), "ISO 8879 TC 2",
integrated perspective for engineering enterprise
URL
agility.
http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg4/document/1955.ht
m.
6. REFERENCES
Gruber, T. R., (1995), "Towards Principles
Apparao, V., Byrne, S., Champion, M., for the Design of Ontologies Used for Knowledge
Isaacs, S., Jacobs, I., Hors, A. L., Nicol, G., Sharing", International Journal of Human-
Robie, J., Sutor, R., Wilson, C., and Wood, L., Computer Studies, 43: 5/6, pp. 907-928.
(1998), "Document Object Model (DOM) Level
1", URL http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM- Guarino, N., (1998), "Formal Ontology and
Level-1. Information Systems", Proceedings of the First
International Conference Formal Ontology in
Barbuceanu, M. and M. S. Fox (1994). "The Information Systems, Trento, Italy, pp. 3-15.
Information Agent: An Infrastructure Agent
Supporting Collaborative Enterprise Hanneghan, M., Merabti, M., and
Architectures". Proceedings of Third Workshop Colquhoun, G., (1996), "The World-Wide Web as
on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for a Platform for Supporting Interactive Concurrent
Collaborative Enterprises, Morgantown, West Engineering", Advanced Information Systems
Virginia, USA. Engineering - 8th International Conference,
CAiSE'96, 1080, Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes
Bernstein, P. A., (1996), "Middleware: A in Computer Science, Heraklion, Crete, Greece,
Model for Distributed System Services", pp. 301-318.
Communications of the ACM, 39: 2, pp. 87-98.
Hanneghan, M., Merabti, M., and
Blàzquez, M., Fernàndez-Lopez, M., Colquhoun, G., (1998), "CONCERT: A
Garcia-Pinar, J. M., and Gomez-Pérez, A., (1998), Middleware-based Support Environment for
"Building Ontologies at the Knowledge Level Concurrent Engineering", Proceedings of Second
using the Ontology Design Environment", International Symposium on Tools and Methods
Proceedings of Eleventh Workshop on Knowledge for Concurrent Engineering (TMCE'98),
Acquisition, Modelling and Management, Banff, Manchester Metropolitan University, United
Alberta, Canada. Kingdom, pp. 446-455.
Bosak, J., (1997), "XML, Java, and the Hanneghan, M., Merabti, M., and
Future of the Web", URL Colquhoun, G., (2000), "A Viewpoint Analysis
http://webreview.com/wr/pub/97/12/19/xml/index Reference Model for Concurrent Engineering",
.html. Computers In Industry, 41: 1, pp. 35-49.
Bray, T., Paoli, J., and Spherberg- Jain, A. K., Aparichio IV, M., and Singh,
McQueen, C. M., (1998), "Extensible Markup M. P., (1999), "Agents for Process Coherence in
Language (XML) 1.0 Specification", URL http:// Virtual Enterprises", Communications of the
www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml. ACM, 42: 3, pp. 62-69.
Ceponkus, A., and Hoodbhoy, F., (1999), Jones, D. M., (1998), "Developing Shared
Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers, John Ontologies in Multi-agent Systems", ECAI'98
Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, USA. Workshop on Intelligent Information Integration,
Clark, J., (1999), "Associating Style Sheets Brighton, United Kingdom.
with XML Documents Version 1.0", URL http:// King, P., and Tester, J., (1999), "The
www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet. Landscape of Persuasive Technologies",
Eriksson, H., and Penker, M., (1998), UML Communications of the ACM, 42: 5, pp. 31-38.
Toolkit, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, Kotonya, G., and Sommerville, I., (1996),
USA. "Requirements Engineering with Viewpoints",
Fox, M. S., and Gruninger, M., (1998), Software Engineering Journal, 11: 1, pp. 5-18.
"Enterprise Modeling", AI Magazine, Fall, pp. Lassila, O., and Swick, R. R., (1999),
109-120. "Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model

14. and Syntax Specification", URL Singh, M. P., (1998), "Agent
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/. Communication Languages: Rethinking the
Principles", IEEE Computer, 31: 12, pp. 40-47.
Laufmann, S. C., (1997), "Towards Agent-
based Software Engineering for Information- Singhal, S., and Nguyen, B., (1998), "The
dependent Enterprise Applications", IEE Java Factor", Communications of the ACM, 41: 6,
Proceedings Software Engineering, 144: 1, pp. pp. 34-37.
38-50.
Smith, H., and Poulter, K., (1999), "Share
Mace, S., Flohr, U., Dobson, R., and the Ontology in XML-based Trading
Graham, T., (1998), "Weaving a Better Web", Architectures", Communications of the ACM, 42:
BYTE, 23: 3, pp. 58-68. 3, pp. 110-111.
Maffeis, S., and Schmidt, D. C., (1997), Sommerville, I., (1995). Software
"Constructing Reliable Distributed Engineering, 5th edition, Addison-Wesley, New
Communication Systems with CORBA", IEEE York, USA.
Communications, 35: 2, pp. 56-60.
Sommerville, I., Sawyer, P., and Viller, S.,
Mannion, M., Keepence, B., and Harper, (1998), "Viewpoints for Requirements Elicitation:
D., (1998), "Using Viewpoints to Define Domain A Practical Approach", Proceedings of IEEE
Requirements", IEEE Software, 1/2, pp. 95-102. International Conference on Requirements
Engineering, IEEE Press, Colorado Springs,
McFall, C., (1998), "An Object
USA.
Infrastructure for Internet Middleware", IEEE
Internet Computing, 3/4, pp. 46-51. Uschold, M., and Gruninger, M., (1996),
"Ontologies: Principles, Methods and
Merabti, M., Hanneghan, H., and Mokhtar,
Applications", Knowledge Engineering Review,
A., (1999), "Towards a Framework for Enterprise
11: 2, pp. 93-136.
Integration", Proceedings of Second Workshop on
European Scientific and Industrial Collaboration Uschold, M., King, M., Morales, S., and
WESIC '99, Newport, South Wales, United Zorgios, Y., (1997), "The Enterprise Ontology",
Kingdom, pp. 95-102. Knowledge Engineering Review, 13, pp. 71-88.
Meyer, B., and Mingins, C., (1999), Vinoski, S., (1997), "CORBA: Integrating
"Component-Based Development: From Buzz to Diverse Applications Within Distributed
Spark", IEEE Computer, 32: 7, pp. 35-37. Heterogeneous Environments", IEEE
Communications, 35: 2, pp. 46-55.
Nagel, R. N., and Dove, R., (1991),
"Twenty-First Century Manufacturing Enterprise Visser, P. R. S., Jones, D. M., Bench-
Strategy: An Industry-led View", Technical Capon, T. J. M., and Shave, M. J. R., (1998),
Report, Iacocca Institute, Lehigh University, "Assessing Heterogeneity by Classifying
Pennsylvania, USA. Ontology Mismatches", Proceedings of the First
International Conference Formal Ontology in
Prokopenko, J., (1999), "Globalisation,
Information Systems, Trenco, Italy, pp. 148-162.
Alliances and Networking: A Strategy for
Competitiveness and Productivity", URL Waters, J. K., (1998), "Java in the Middle",
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/65entrep/papers Strategic Platforms The Journal of Advanced
/emd21.htm. Software Engineering, Fall, pp. 10-19.
Ryan, T. W., (1997). Distributed Object Wong, D., Paciorek, N., and Moore, D.,
Technology: Concepts & Applications, Prentice (1999), "Java-based Mobile Agents",
Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. Communications of the ACM, 42: 3, pp. 92-102.
Schlenoff, C., Ivester, R., and Knutilla, A.,
(1998), "A Robust Process Ontology for
Manufacturing Systems Integration", URL http://
www.ontology.org/main/papers/psl.html.
Siegel, J., (1998), "OMG Overview:
CORBA and the OMA in Enterprise Computing",
Communications of the ACM, 41: 10, pp. 37-43.