CodingBlind: Automated Cloud Services Generation From Printed Forms and BPMN

Cloud service is a new trend in constructing enterprise applications. However, implementing cloud services is time consuming, costly, and error prone. Moreover, there are concerns about the isolation and flexibility of multitenancy cloud services. To solve these problems, we propose a novel and easy approach: CodingBlind, which automatically generates cloud services from the most commonly used printed forms and graphical business process modeling notation (BPMN). CodingBlind provides a natural solution for the deployment and migration of systems in clouds. First, printed forms are mapped onto entity-relationship models (ER models) to generate data services. States of data and a finite state machine (FSM) are constructed from the BPMN. Based on the FSM and the ER models, quadruple models for cloud services are generated. Then, a complete system package is generated according to the quadruple model. Finally, all of the components are packaged and deployed to a cloud. CodingBlind is easy to use because it only takes printed forms and BPMNs as inputs. Self-defining data and business logic make the generated cloud services flexible. Moreover, the business logic is strictly controlled by the FSM, which provides natural isolation for cloud applications. Case studies and experiments are conducted to assess the proposed approach, and the results show that it is feasible, convenient, and flexible.