Distribution concerns in service-oriented modelling

Service-oriented development offers a novel architectural approach to business process development that addresses issues such as dynamic evolution and intra- and inter-enterprise cooperation. Our emphasis in this paper is on the distribution aspects of that approach: we show how a ‘distribution logic’ can be defined that extends the typical ‘composition layer’ of service-oriented architectures with semantic primitives that address the way business rules depend on ‘locations’. These primitives address what are sometimes called ‘business channels’ (ATMs, PDAs, Pay-TV, Internet, inter alia) as offered in typical ICT-infrastructures, adding substantial value to business processes. Our approach is based on a mathematical model that we have recently developed for modelling context-aware interactions. An example from banking is used for illustrating its applicability.