Linking legacy services to the business process model

The purpose of the work described here is to support the reuse of existing software systems in a SOA environment by linking a description of existing programs to the overlying business processes. It is one thing to technically wrap the legacy code. It is another matter to connect the code interface definition to the business processes. The SoftLink tool is under development to bridge that gap between the business model and the code reality. The crux of the solution is to identify the entry points to the application system and their parameters and to link them to the events in the business process via a WSDL interface. The method is illustrated here on a legacy COBOL application for processing customer orders. From that code interfaces to the events within the subject-oriented business process model are created via a semi-automated transformation. Future development will focus on linking Java and .Net systems as well. This will provide a better basis for the maintenance of SOA systems and allow impact analysis to traverse the border between model and code.