Name: COSIMO; Title: COSIMO: Collaborative Configuration Systems Integration and Modeling; Begins On: 2014-01-01; Ends On: 2017-05-30; Context: Vienna Business Agency (WAW);

Partners:

Partner:	Siemens AG Österreich
	WIEN
	Austria

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	Wirtschaftsagentur Wien Ein Fonds der Stadt Wien
Region:	National
Body:	Vienna Business Agency (WAW)
Call:	IKT Wien 2013

Astract:

The goal of the project COSIMO is to build up a portfolio configurator platform for leveraging tool integration for railway automation systems and, in general, for production systems at Siemens. The core of this framework comprehensively bases on model-driven concepts and semantic system's techniques.

COSIMO stretches over three unique but highly interwoven research goals:

- First, support roundtripable and reusable model exchange among heterogeneous engineering for using tool metamodels and tool adapters with model transformations.

- Second, facilitate consistent collaborative modeling between teams in a non-intrusive way, by model virtualization mechanisms together with redundancy and detection mechanisms that are based on specialized model management operators.

 - Third, enable guided reconfiguration of evolving component versions across tool boundaries to ensure compatibility of component versions and validity of configurations, by explicitly representing component versions and providing proper reasoning mechanisms and reconfiguration languages.

Name: REAlist; Title: Multi-Tenant ERP System in the Cloud: A Model-Driven Approach Based on the Resource-Event-Agent Ontology; Begins On: 2013-09-01; Ends On: 2015-08-31; Context: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG);

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH
Region:	National
Body:	Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
Programs:	Bridge, Basic programs
Call:	Bridge - 17. Ausschreibung
Type:	Contract/collaboration
Source:	eventus Marketingservice GmbH

Astract:

Cloud Computing führte in den letzten fünf Jahren zu einem Paradigmenwechsel in der IT-Branche. Über die Cloud werden Rechenkapazität, Datenspeicher, Netzwerkkapazitäten oder auch fertige Software zur Verfügung gestellt. In diesem Projekt adressieren wir die letztere Variante von cloud-basierten Lösungen, welche auch als Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) bekannt ist. In SaaS Lösungen werden Applikationen zentral verwaltet und können von überall aus aufgerufen werden. Die Lösungen bieten eine hohe Verfügbarkeit und automatische, zentrale Sicherung. Der Kunde hat somit immer eine aktuelle Version und kann sich auf das Wesentliche, das Benutzen der Applikation, konzentrieren. Prinzipiell können alle Arten von Software als cloud-basierte Lösung angeboten werden, so auch ERP Systeme. Im Falle von ERP Systemen bedeutet dies, statt eine eigene Instanz der ERP Software an Kunden auszuliefern, wird in der Cloud zentral eine einzelne Instanz des ERP Systems gehostet. Dementsprechend greifen alle Kunden über die Cloud auf diese Instanz zu. Aus diesem Grund ist es von zentraler Bedeutung, dass das ERP System in der Cloud mandantenfähig ist. Ein wesentlicher Aspekt bei ERP Systemen ist die interne Prozessunterstützung und der grundsätzlich brancheneutrale Ansatz. Obwohl auf abstrakter Ebene die Geschäftsprozesse unterschiedlicher Unternehmen sehr ähnlich ablaufen und auf gemeinsamen Kernbausteinen beruhen, sind im Detail die konkreten Ausprägungen von Unternehmen zu Unternehmen sehr unterschiedlich. Daraus folgt, dass eine individuelle und rasche Adaptierung an unterschiedliche Bedürfnisse unterschiedlicher Unternehmen mittels Customizing (Anpassung) zu erfolgen hat. Idealerweise erfolgt diese Anpassung durch Parametrisierung ohne Programmierung. Ziel dieses Projekts ist ein kostengünstiger Ansatz zur unternehmensspezifischen Anpassung eines mandantenfähigen ERP Systems. Die Mandantenfähigkeit stellt in diesem Zusammenhang eine zusätzliche Herausforderung dar, weil zwar für jeden Mandanten individuelle User Interfaces mit individuellen Ausprägungen zur Verfügung gestellt werden, aber alle Mandanten eine gemeinsame Infrastruktur, wie zum Beispiel eine generische Datenbank nutzen sollen. Zum Zweck der unternehmensspezifischen Anpassungen wird ein modellgetriebener Ansatz verfolgt. Das heißt, Standardgeschäftsfälle werden mit Hilfe einer grafischen Modellierungssprache als Referenzmodelle beschrieben. Zudem können mit der grafischen Modellierungssprache unternehmensspezifische Anpassungen der Referenzmodelle vorgenommen werden. Auf Basis dieser Modelle können User Interfaces und Datenbankmappings erzeugt werden. Als Sprache zur Beschreibung der Geschäftsmodelle verwenden wir die REA (Resource-Event-Agent) Ontologie. REA ist eine universelle Sprache, die eindeutige Kommunikation ermöglicht und ein gemeinsames Verständnis für alle am Softwareentwicklungsprozess Beteiligten schafft. Der Projektname REAlist spiegelt einerseits den Bezug zur REA Ontologie wieder und andererseits nimmt er darauf Bezug, dass Auswertungen (Saldenlisten) wie im klassischen ERP erstellt werden können. Wir möchten aber auch betonen, dass wir beim Projekt realistisch bleiben wollen. Es ist klar, dass mit der Anzahl der am Projekt beteiligten Personen innerhalb von 2 Jahren kein ERP System in vollem Funktionalitätsumfang umgesetzt werden kann. Vordergründig geht es im Projekt darum REA Konzepte mittels eines modellgetriebenen Ansatzes auf ein ERP Systems umzulegen und dieses als mandantenfähige SaaS Lösung zu konzipieren.

Name: ARTIST; Title: ARTIST: Advanced software-based seRvice provisioning and migraTIon of legacy Software; Begins On: 2012-10-01; Ends On: 2015-09-30; Context: European Commission;

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	European Commission
Region:	EU
Body:	European Commission
Programs:	FP7 I.3 COOPERATION Information and Communication Technologies, 7.Rahmenprogramm für Forschung, European Commission - Framework Programme
Call:	FP7-ICT-2011-8
Proposal:	317859

Astract:

Successful software has to evolve to keep it compatible and up to date. Up to 90% of software cost is spent on maintenance and of this 75% is spent on the development of new features for staying competitive. The industry progresses through periods of incremental development interlaced with true paradigm shifts. We are currently experiencing one of these paradigm shifts, as remarked by the European Commission: “The speed of change in Internet technologies continues to be impressive. Software is becoming more and more pervasive: it runs on the devices that we use every day ...[opening] a new world of possible applications” cf. Cloud computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Software Engineering, European Union, 2011 (doi:10.2759/47598).

Accordingly, more and more traditional software vendors notice the need to transform their current business and technology model in order to remain competitive. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is seen as the most promising way to achieve this change. However, this transition from Software-off-the-shelf (often residing as legacy applications) to SaaS is a tremendous challenge comprising business, application and technical issues. Having an automated, vendor, technology and hardware independent way to migrate an application would permit the software to evolve easily even in case of transition to new paradigms.

ARTIST proposes a software migration approach covering the premigration and postmigration phases. The premigration phase analyzes the technical and non-technical consequences of migrations, supporting the decision-making process on how a migration should be done. The migration phase itself is based on Model Driven Engineering techniques to automate the reverse engineering of the legacy applications to platform independent models. These models are the input for the forward engineering process to generate and deploy modernized applications and to support future migrations. In the postmigration phase, the modernized applications are certified with respect to the stated goals of the premigration phase.

ARTIST will reduce the risk, time and cost of migrating legacy software. It will lower the barriers for companies (with existing software) wanting to take advantage of the latest technologies and business models, particularly when considering the current benefits of Cloud Computing and SaaS.

Name: WIN; Title: Web of Needs INfrastructure; Begins On: 2012-07-01; Ends On: 2014-10-31; Context: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG);

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH
Region:	National
Body:	Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
Programs:	Bridge, Basic programs

Astract:

Der wirtschaftlich genutzte Teil des World Wide Web leidet an einer fundamentalen Asymmetrie. Während eine große Zahl an kommerziellen Angeboten online verfügbar ist, sind die Bedürfnisse der KonsumentInnen nur in seltenen Fällen explizit repräsentiert. Daher ist der am häufigsten angewandte Prozess, der KonsumentInnen mit AnbieterInnen verbindet, die Web-Suche. Wir entwickeln im vorliegenden Projekt eine Infrastruktur, die es KonsumentInnen ermöglichen soll, ihre Bedürfnisse im Web so zu publizieren, dass AnbieterInnen in einem semi-automatischen Prozess mit ihnen interagieren können. Dadurch sollen die Notwendigkeit der manuellen Web-Suche reduziert und neue, disruptive Applikationen ermöglicht werden.

Name: DARWIN; Title: DARWIN - Model-driven Development and Evolution of Semantic Infrastructures; Begins On: 2012-03-01; Ends On: 2015-02-28; Context: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG);

Keywords: model-driven, Modeling language, MDE, SI, Semantic Web

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH
Region:	National
Body:	Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
Programs:	Basic programs
Type:	Contract/collaboration
Source:	LieberLieber Software GmbH

Astract:

The main goal of DARWIN is to provide an extensible framework based on well-established conceptual modeling languages and model-driven engineering techniques enabling developers to entirely develop and evolve SIs at an appropriate level of abstraction. To accomplish this goal, a prototype will be developed. Case studies will be conducted in cooperation with “JoinVision”, “Team Communication Technology Management Gmbh (Team)”, a company currently conducting a FIT-IT Semantic Systems project to leverage ontology-driven situation awareness in large-scale control systems, as well as “Gemeindeinformatikzentrum Kärnten (Giz-K)”, a company focusing on building and maintaining eGovernment solutions based on SIs. Together with these demonstrators and external experts from academia, namely Jordi Cabot (École des Mines de Nantes), Dragan Gaševic (Athabasca University), and Steffen Staab (University of Koblenz-Landau) and from industry (“Franz Inc.”, supplier of commercial, scalable RDF Graph Database products) we intend to evaluate the applicability of our prototype for developing and maintaining the Semantic Infrastructures of Semantic Web applications as well as traditional applications. Along this overall research focus, DARWIN pursues three key research goals: Model-driven Semantic Infrastructure Development, Change-Aware Development Environment, Semi-Automatd Co-Evolution.

Name: ERPEL; Title: E-business Registry Permitting Enterprise Liaisons; Begins On: 2010-05-01; Ends On: 2013-08-31; Context: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG);

Keywords: Inter-organizational Systems , Business Document Standards, E-Business Registry , Semantically Enabled ERP-Systems

Partners:

Partner:	BMD Systemhaus GmbH
	Steyr
	Austria
Partner:	BOC Unternehmensberatung GmbH
	Wien
	Austria
Partner:	Blue Monkeys GmbH
	Wien
	Austria
Partner:	MEGA ELEKTRO GmbH
	Wien
	Austria
Partner:	MESONIC Softwareentwicklung GmbH
	Mauerbach
	Austria
Partner:	Paradigma Unternehmensberatung GmbH
	Wien
	Austria
Partner:	Smejkal Ges.m.b.H.
	Wien
	Austria

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH
Region:	National
Body:	Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
Programs:	FIT-IT, Thematic programme

Astract: The project ERPEL targets at an e-business registry serving as a backbone for executing on-the-fly e-business transactions between semantically enabled ERP systems. By on-the-fly e-business transactions we understand transactions that are conducted between companies, which are not yet in a partnership and dynamically find each other in order to engage in e-business transactions. These business partners have to find each other according to both their business needs and technical capabilities. This is supported by the ERPEL registry. Today, registries are often successfully used within a company, but there are hardly any success stories on public registries to support B2B. One reason is that registry entries may not be considered trustworthy. In order to avoid fake entries, the ERPEL registry will reconcile data with business directories of legal authorities. Furthermore, companies usually do not trust other unknown companies. In order to foster trust in this context we build upon techniques known from social networks. Thereby, we aim at establishing business networks within the ERPEL registry. Finding an appropriate business partner, it is important to know her business capabilities or in other words which products she offers. Usually companies maintain their product portfolio in their ERP system, but hardly anyone is willing to maintain this portfolio in another data store, i.e., the registry. Thus, we develop a seamless integration of the product portfolios, held in the ERP systems of the project partners, into the ERPEL registry. In order to avoid a proliferation of different naming and descriptions of the same products, we apply semantic techniques for product classifications. A search in the registry has to disclose the technical capabilities of a potential business partner in order to ensure interoperability. Overloaded business document standards, missing process choreographies, and a variety of communication protocols hamper an effective search. Thus, ERPEL follows a bottom-up approach starting from core documents with well-defined extension mechanisms, and unambiguous business choreography specifications. Furthermore, ERPEL comes with a default communication protocol specifically targeting SMEs. These unambiguous specifications allow the development of business service interfaces (BSI) that are integrated into the ERP systems. BSIs guarantee the execution of e-business transactions between customers of different ERP systems.

Name: SWITCH09; Title: Rail track gauging Austrian Federal Railways; Begins On: 2009-07-01; Ends On: 2009-08-31; Context: Berner & Mattner Systemtechnik GmbH;

Keywords: process visualization, business process modeling, business process reengineering

Fundings:

Type:	Contract/collaboration
Source:	Berner & Mattner Systemtechnik GmbH

Astract: The project SWITCH09 aims at capturing the processes of rail track gauging at the Austrian Federal Railways in a formalized manner. The captured process model facilitates the communication of existing processes between different departments and may be used to detect bottle-necks in the current process flow. The rail track gauging process detects damaged parts of railway tracks and railway track switches in particular. The repair process of the damaged track parts is currently done manually. With the investment in a new maintenance machine the repair process will be done in a semi-automatic manner in the future. Apart from capturing the actual process, the process to-be under consideration of the new maintenance machine shall be captured as well.

Name: TROPIC; Title: TROPIC: A Framework for Model Transformations on Petri Nets in Color; Begins On: 2009-03-01; Ends On: 2012-08-31; Context: Austrian Science Fund (FWF);

Keywords: Model-Driven Software Development, Model Transformation Languages, Colored Petri Nets

Partners:

Partner:	Darmstadt University of Technology
	ORT
	Germany
Partner:	Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
	Linz
	Austria
Partner:	University of Aarhus
	ORT
	Denmark
Partner:	Université de Nantes
	ORT
	France

Fundings:

Type:	Grant funds
Source:	FWF - Österr. Wissenschaftsfonds
Region:	National
Body:	Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Astract: Model transformations play an important role in software engineering in general and in the area of model-driven engineering in particular, representing the key mechanisms for model translations (e.g., translating an ER model into a UML class model), model augmentations (e.g., weaving aspects into a UML class model), and model alignments (e.g., mapping a content model to its GUI view), to mention just a few. Several kinds of dedicated model transformation languages have emerged during the last years, which allow specifying and executing transformations between source and target metamodels and their corresponding models, respectively. However, none of these languages, not even the QVT-standard proposed by the OMG, became generally accepted as a state-of-the-art technology for model transformations. This rare adoption of model transformation languages in practice is due to several reasons. First, existing model transformation languages do not provide appropriate abstraction mechanisms to deal with the complexity of structural heterogeneities of different metamodels. Second, they lack suitable reuse mechanisms in order to reduce the high and error-prone effort of specifying recurring transformations. And finally, these languages exhibit an inherent impedance mismatch between the specification and the execution of model transformations in terms of a one-to-many derivation of concepts, thus hampering both, understandability and debuggability. The aim of this project is to establish a framework called TROPIC (Transformations on Petri Nets in Color) for developing model transformations which tackles these limitations. First, TROPIC allows to specify model transformations on different abstraction levels, providing both a declarative mapping language based on UML 2 component diagrams which hides implementation details, and derived from that, an executable transformation language using Coloured Petri Nets. Second, TROPIC facilitates reusability by providing an initial library of generic transformation operators which can be bound to arbitrary metamodels and by allowing to extend this library on demand with new, user-defined, transformation operators, optionally composed out of already existing ones. Finally, TROPIC overcomes the impedance mismatch by supporting a dedicated runtime model in terms of Coloured Petri Nets, allowing for a homogeneous representation of all transformation artefacts (i.e., models, metamodels and the transformation logic itself), which fosters understandability and debuggability of model transformations. The methodology for evaluating the proposed framework builds on three major pillars. First, appropriate case studies for transforming heterogeneous structural as well as behavioural models will be set up and implemented with different existing model transformation languages, including TROPIC, the results being evaluated on basis of a suitable subset of the ISO 9126 software quality model. Second, the findings of these case studies will be further critically reflected by conducting an empirical study with students from our model engineering courses (around 200 master students every year). Third, dedicated workshops will be held together with internationally renowned inventors of other model transformation languages to additionally review the value of our proposed framework.

Name: AMOR; Title: AMOR: Adaptable Model Versioning; Begins On: 2009-02-01; Ends On: 2011-09-30; Context: SparxSystems Software GmbH;

Keywords: Model-Driven Software Development, Conflict Detection, Conflict Resolution, Model Versioning, Adaptable Model Versioning System

Partners:

Partner:	Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
	Linz
	Austria
Partner:	Sparx Systems Software GmbH
	Wien

Fundings:

Type:	Contract/collaboration
Source:	SparxSystems Software GmbH
Type:	Grant funds
Source:	FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH
Region:	National
Body:	Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)

Astract: The development of complex software systems requires appropriate abstraction mechanisms in terms of model-driven engineering techniques (MDE) and proper support for allowing developers to work in parallel in terms of version control systems (VCS). For realizing the vision of MDE, a bundle of standards for model transformations, model storage, and model exchange has been made available recently, whereas the versioning of models has not gained the necessary attention yet, although being of paramount importance for the success of MDE in practice. Existing VCS in the area of MDE suffer from three main deficiencies comprising erroneous conflict detection, unsupportive conflict resolution and inflexibility with respect to domain-specific modeling languages (DSLs) and associated tools. With AMOR (Adaptable Model Versioning) we propose novel semantic-based methods and techniques to leverage version control in the area of MDE. The innovations of AMOR are manifested in three key research goals. Firstly, AMOR aims at precise conflict detection, i.e. previously undetected as well as wrongly indicated conflicts should be avoided. For this, we incorporate knowledge about the type of modifications the models have undergone and knowledge about the semantics of the modeling concepts used. Secondly, AMOR focuses on an intelligent conflict resolution by providing techniques for the representation of conflicting modifications as well as relieving users from repetitive tasks by suggesting proper resolution strategies. Thirdly, AMOR targets at an adaptable versioning framework, empowering the user to flexibly balance between reasonable adaptation effort and proper versioning support while ensuring generic applicability to various DSLs and associated tools. The solutions to these challenges are realized by means of the AMOR prototype. The method for evaluating AMOR builds on three major pillars, comprising experiments, empirical studies and a case study, integrating AMOR into the commercial UML-tool Enterprise Architect. Thus, AMOR will represent a research test bed as well as an industrial showcase for further commercial exploitation.

Name: ebInterface 3.0; Title: ebInterface 3.0 - electronic invoicing; Begins On: 2009-01-01; Ends On: 2010-02-28; Context: Austriapro c/o Wirtschaftskammer Österrecih;

Keywords: Document Standards, e-Billing, Electronic Data Interchange, Electronic Invoicing

Fundings:

Type:	Contract/collaboration
Source:	Austriapro c/o Wirtschaftskammer Österrecih

Astract: The Austrian e-billing standard ebInterface has been supported by major Austrian ERP-vendors. Thus, the XML-based ebInterface standard may be used in Austria to exchange invoices by electronic means. However, the critical mass of adopters has not yet been reached, which limits the full potential of electronic e-billing in Austria. In order to become more attrective to potential adopters the ebInterface standard have to be revisited according to the following issues: * Update of the standard to incorporate requirements reported from the ERP-vendors, early adopters and potential adopters. * Evaluation of a concept for plug-ins into the standard that allow industry-specific extensions to the standards * Simplification of those parts of the standard that cause misinterpretation and hinder adoption of the standard