Engineering Simulations with Webbased Services 11th ICCCBE Conference

Engineering Simulations with Webbased Services 11th ICCCBE Conference June 16, 2006 Jinxing Cheng, Chin Pang Cheng, Mai Anh Le Thi and Kincho H. Law

Table of Contents Introduction Web Services / SOA – Scenario 1 – integrating online information Orchestration vs. Choreography FICAS / SimAL – Scenario 2 – service orchestration BPEL – Scenario 3 – application of business Web services Conclusion 2

Motivation Two main trends in Construction Industry: 1. Integrated Framework – Leverage existing resources – Minimize cost of developing new applications Integration Coding 1970 1990 2010 3

Motivation 2. Distributed Work and Globalization Owner General Contractor Subcontractors Architect/ Design Consultants Suppliers How can it be solved? Courtesy: Hans Bjornsson 4

What is Web Services? Web Services as Software Architecture “Web services are a new breed of Web application. They are self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can be published, located, and invoked across the Web. Web services perform functions, which can be anything from simple requests to complicated business processes Once a Web service is deployed, other applications (and other Web services) can discover and invoke the deployed service.” IBM Web Services Tutorial 5

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) 3 Types of Web applications: Static Web Site (HTTP/HTML) Dynamic Web Site (Java/J2EE) Connected Applications (SOA) SOA: Interconnected web of Web services (business, engineering, etc.) Courtesy: Oracle 6

Scenario 1: Integrating Online Catalog with CAD and Inventory Management Deployed Suppliers Web Services Web Services Web Service Gateway ROQs Architectural Design Inventory Management Order & Invoice Automated Procurement Further Simulation 7

Interaction with Online Catalog Autodesk’s i-drop : web page modified HTML file enabled object XML package file 8

Inventory Management and Procurement Deployed Suppliers Web Services Web Service Gateway Inventory Mgt & Cost Estimation Automated Workflow/ Supply Chain Procurement Availability Checking & Decisionmaking 9

Pros and Cons of Web Services Composition Benefits: Automation Flexibility Modularity Increased functionality 7-day, 24-hour Dynamic Drawbacks: Loosely coupled, distributed models More difficult to build More difficult to maintain Autonomous Web services Interoperability issue 10

Orchestration and Choreography of Web Services Orchestration: An executable process describing a flow from the perspective and under control of a single endpoint [Oracle] Commonly known as “Workflow” Schedule Change Change of Design Change of Design Ack. Receive Changed Design 11

Choreography of Web Services Choreography: Public exchange of messages between two or more process Schedule Change end-points Change of Design Change of Design Ack. Receive Orchestration AND Choreography Changed Design 12

Flow-based Infrastructure for Composing Autonomous Services (FICAS) Centralized Control-flow Distributed Data-flow (1CnD) – Large file size allowed – Alleviating the bottleneck – ID or URI for each service MegaService Service 3 Service 1 Service 2 Benefits – Scalability – Better performance – Increased functionality MegaService Service 3 Service 1 Service 2 Data flow Control flow 13

Simulation Access Language (SimAL) A Simple Easy-to-Use High-Level Language – Coordinating services – Simulating and comparing scenarios Major Components – Invocation Statements (SETUP, INVOKE) – Operation Statements (QUERY, UPDATE) – Control Statements (IF-THEN-ELSE, WHILE) – Decision-support Statements (SCENARIO CREATION, SCENARIO COMPARISION, etc.) 14

Scenario 2: Integrating Online Weather Service to Engineering Simulation Translate into XML ?xml version "1.0"? WeatherReport weather date "2003-9-23" location zipcode value "33410" / /location conditions value " Isolated thunderstorms early, mainly cloudy overnight with a few showers" / temperature templow c "23.3" f "74.0" / temphigh c "32.2" f "90.0" / /temperature /weather 15

Workflow to Utilize Dynamically Parsed Weather Information Microsoft Excel Online Weather Information Information of Weather Impact Process Weather Impact Re-Schedule the Project Re-Simulate the Project Notify Participants Scheduling Information (e.g., P3, MS Project, or Database) Autodesk ADT 16

Project Rescheduling and Re-simulating Original Schedule in Primavera P3 Original Backlog Chart Simulated using Vite and Displayed in Excel Updated Schedule in Primavera P3 Updated Backlog Chart Simulated using Vite and Displayed in Excel 17

BPEL4WS in Engineering Application Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) Converges the ideas of XLANG (Microsoft) and WSFL (IBM) Standard orchestration language for business Web services Two kinds of activity coordinations: – – Primitive activities ( invoke , receive , ) Structured activities ( sequence , switch , while , ) Allows: – – – – Asynchronous and Synchronous Concurrent process ( flow ) Fault handler ( faultHandlers catch ) Semi-automatic operations BPEL4WS UDDI WSDL SOAP HTTP 18

Scenario 3 – Utilizing BPEL for Engineering Application inputVariable part name "payload" ContractorProcessRequest orderID KH083D7 /orderID manufacturer Kohler /manufacturer modelNumber K-988 /modelNumber quantity 20 /quantity status Unavailable /status /ContractorProcessRequest /part /inputVariable 19

Concurrently Services Invoking orderReply1 part name "payload" Supplier1ProcessResponse orderReply2 status Available /status part name "payload" price 350 /price Supplier2ProcessResponse /Supplier1ProcessResponse status Available /status /part price 360 /price /orderReply1 /Supplier2ProcessResponse /part /orderReply2 20

Decision-making to Select the Service Change Schedule Automated Ordering outputVariable part name "payload" ContractorProcessResponse supplier Supplier1 /supplier orderID UH70987 /orderID manufacturer Kohler /manufacturer modelNumber K980 /modelNumber price 350 /price quantity 20 /quantity comment/ /ContractorProcessResponse /part /outputVariable 21

Summary and Remarks Significance: Virtual supply chain Automation of tedious and redundant process Extensible workflow Future Work: Extension to more engineering workflows and applications Interoperability problem Security and Reliability issue 22