Towards a conceptual framework for decomposing non-functional Requirements of business process into quality of service attributes

Abstract

Non-functional Requirements (NFRs) of web services are defined by IT teams at the implementation level often as Quality of Service (QoS) attributes. Orchestrating web services to run business processes requires a rigorous definition of the NFRs of such web services. The definition of QoS attributes should consider the business process NFRs since misinterpretations of web service NFRs may affect the behavior of the web services and hence achieving the business goals. The approaches proposed so far are still heavily dependent on an IT expert’s knowledge to identify the appropriate QoS attributes required to meet particular business process NFRs. Defining appropriate QoS attributes without reference to business process-level NFRs may be a costly, time-consuming task. We propose a conceptual framework for the hierarchical decomposition of NFRs from the business process level to the web service level. This framework seeks to reduce the dependence on a particular IT expert’s knowledge by simplifying the dialog between the business and IT areas. The proposed framework relies on a structure of NFRs interdependence. The main reference was the ISO/IEC 25010 Product Quality Model, extended by additional software quality models and particular QoS attributes.