Multi-perspective Process Variability: A Case for Smart ...

1 Multi-perspective Process variability : a case for Smart Green Buildings(Short Paper)Aitor MurguzurInformation Technologies AreaIK4-Ikerlan Research Center, Spaine-mail: Truong and Schahram DustdarDistributed Systems GroupVienna University of Technology, The variability scale in large-scale Cyber-PhysicalSystems (CPSs) is high and complex due to the voluminousness,dynamicity and diversity of available computing resources (peo-ple, things and software services), domain-specific processes,domain-specific elements (stakeholders, assets and contracts),and their relationships.

2 This requires us to go beyond currentvariability modeling and management techniques which neglectthe complexity and the diversity of relevant stakeholders, dataand assets, and thus cannot cope with intelligent business andanalytics requirements in dynamic environments, such as smartcity management. In this paper, we present a comprehensiveanalysis for understanding the Multi-perspective variability inprocesses atop people, data and things in CPSs, particularly,for the sustainability governance of Smart Green Buildings(SGBs).

3 We examine domain-specific processes and domain-specific elements and their relationships to derive a multiple- perspective variability management for SGBs. On the basis ofthis, we conceptualize a novel model for the multi -perspectiveprocess variability city; Smart building; variability ; processconfiguration;I. INTRODUCTIONR ecently, the integration and high availability of people,data and things have introduced several platforms for sus-tainability analysis and governance of large-scale Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), such as Smart Green Building(SGB) and Smart city management [1].

4 Generally, sustain-ability analysis and governance in those settings deal withthe maintenance and optimization of Mechanical, Electri-cal and Plumbing (MEP) systems and buildings to meetstakeholders business objectives, reducing the energyconsumption, and to comply with sustainability regulations, reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions [2].From our work of cloud-based M2M (Machine-to-Machine) platforms for large-scale CPSs [3], we have ob-served that while people, data and things may be abstractedunder the service model and invoked via different processmodels, existing techniques have not been adequate forsupporting a large number of processes, which are entirely orpartially common to several stakeholders and different assetsto which domain processes are applied, to manage variouscomplex types of variability .

5 This is partially due to theemerging sustainability analysis and governance for large-scale CPSs, but also because there is a lack of understandingof the relationship among stakeholders, processes, data andassets in Smart environments. To tackle these challenges,we contribute (i) a comprehensive Multi-perspective vari-ability analysis of stakeholders and operation processes inSGBs, and (ii) a conceptual model representation of Multi-perspective Process variability for rest of the paper is organized as follows: SectionII presents a Multi-perspective variability analysis.

6 SectionIII details our approach to model Multi-perspective processvariability. Related work is discussed in Section IV. Finally,we conclude the paper in Section multi -PERSPECTIVEPROCESSVARIABILITYANALY SIS INSGBSB asically, Smart buildings look at two major concerns [4]:(i) improving user experience and (ii) maintaining buildingsustainability. However, these two factors are normally com-peting in a sense of conflict of interests, and SGB solutionsthus need to be sensitive to both within all sustainabilitygovernance life-cycle phases and related governance life-cyclein an SGB con-sists of four main phases.

7 For thesurveyingphase, a numberof services are needed for control and inspection tasks ( re-configuration of monitored equipment parameters)to ensure the correct and sustainable building theinstallation and commissioningphase, services ( procurement) are tailored and offered in accor-dance with each client s requirements. For theconfigurationphase, services include basic guiding principles that are usedas guidelines in selecting an adequate building configurationdepending on building types, regulations and stakeholders requirements.

8 In theoperationphase, services need to becustomized for several stakeholders involved in differenttasks ( monitoring of building facilities), which requirecombining sets of data, artifacts, applications and the other hand, the variability may be observed fromthe domain perspective . A set ofdomain-specific processes( installation and commissioning, configuration, operationand surveying processes) are defined to manage, control2013 IEEE 6th International Conference on Service-Oriented Computing and Applications978-1-4799-2701-2/13 $ 2013 IEEEDOI IEEE 6th International Conference on Service-Oriented Computing and Applications978-1-4799-2701-2/13 $ 2013 IEEEDOI Stakeholders and roles- Operation contractsData- Static data- Dynamic dataThings- Monitored assets - Building typesProcess variabilityInstallation and Commissioning processesConfiguration processesOperation processesSurveying processesDomain-specific processes within

9 Sustainability governance life-cycle of an SGBD omain-specific elements in an SGB handle use Figure 1. Domain processes and domain variability in an SGB monitorstakeholders- representing related roles andactors,operation contracts- which encompass differentagreement policies among stakeholders,monitoring data-which collects data from different assets,monitored assets-including building facilities and monitored equipment, andbuilding types, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Thus, such processesmay be related to diversedomain-specific respect topeople, stakeholders, roles and associ-ated operation contracts will need complex Process modelsthat access and utilize different applications, sub-processes,software and human services, and data types, which give riseto a large collection of related Process variants ( processfamily).

10 These Process variants essentially share a commonpart of a core Process , whereas concrete parts fluctuatefrom variant to variant [5]. Concerningdata, Process modelsvariability might be modeled and managed considering typesof monitoring data - static monitoring data which is knownbefore instantiation ( data about building equipment),and dynamic monitoring data which is collected just-in-time and cannot be anticipated ( GHG data). In termsofthings, beyond the people and data viewpoint, processvariants could also be created for the same purpose ( efficiency, energy consumption) depending on thediversity of monitored assets ( building facilities - floor,room, etc.)