Business Process Centric Platform-as-a-Service Model and Technologies for Cloud Enabled Industry Solutions

With the popularity of cloud computing, Platform-as-a Service (PaaS) becomes one of the core technical enablers by enterprise to change the services to both customers and internal organizations. An application in an enterprise needs to take into account various specific requirements for hosting in private and hybrid cloud, with unique requirements on rapid development, simplicity for deployment and management, integration with existing solution and compliance to industry standards, etc. In this paper, a novel business process centric PaaS model is introduced, which is targeted at supporting above requirements for cloud enabled industry solutions in an enterprise. Firstly, the emerging requirements of PaaS for cloud enabled industry solutions and the general features to meet such requirements are discussed. Then, the architecture and patterns for integrating with existing solutions are introduced. And the technologies to implement such PaaS model are presented including codeless developer workspace and automatic application generator. As well, to enable this PaaS model for “programmable SaaS”, BPM multi-tenancy is introduced. Based on the model and technologies, we designed and implemented cloud enabled industry solutions for Telecommunication, Chemical and Petroleum, Financial and Healthcare industries. This paper demonstrates how these technologies and architectures significantly enhance the capability of PaaS in the context of industry solutions and enterprise environments.