Abstract
The context of this paper is given through a software engineering approach that uses Petri nets as executable code. We apply the particular understanding that Petri nets are not only used to model systems for design purposes but also to implement system components. Following this approach, we develop complex Petri net-based software applications according to the multi-agent paradigm. Agent-internal as well as agent-spanning processes are implemented directly as (high-level) Petri nets. These nets are essential parts of the resulting software application – alongside other parts (operational and declarative ones), which are implemented using traditional ways of programming.
One of our goals is to open our Petri net-based agent framework Mulan/Capa so that multi-agent applications can communicate and interact with other systems – especially with Web-based applications. With this intention, we present a gateway solution to enable Petri net-based applications to access Web services as well as to offer Web services to other applications: the WebGateway. In addition to describing the WebGateway extension itself, we use its presentation to demonstrate the practicability of the Petri net-based software engineering approach in general. We emphasize the benefit of having Petri net models serve as conceptual models that progressively refine the constructed system from simple models to well-defined specifications of the systems. This improves the understanding of the systems.
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Notes
- 1.
For more detailed information about Renew, Mulan and P\(^{*}\) aose see [5], http://www.paose.net and http://www.renew.de.
- 2.
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents: http://www.fipa.org.
- 3.
- 4.
The notion of transitions being interfaces fits nicely with an object-oriented paradigm, if one presumes that these (on one side open) transitions are one port of synchronous channels.
- 5.
In the context of Mulan/Capa protocol nets (also abbreviated as simply protocols) refer to agent behavior nets, which are executed by the individual agents.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
Uniform Resource Identifier.
- 10.
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).
- 11.
- 12.
Although the soundness property is not well-defined for protocol nets, we conceive this property in analogy to soundness of workflow nets.
- 13.
In fact the service takes any file type that can be read by Renew, e.g. Renew nets (.rnw), JHotDraw drawings (.draw), PNML, several diagram types used within P\(^{*}\) aose (.aip,.arm) and also Lola net files (.net). The Renew import/export system is also extensible, so any envisioned file type in the context of Petri nets and UML modeling can be easily implemented.
- 14.
- 15.
In black & white printing the location of the manipulated parts are still recognizable, although it becomes impossible to distinguish removals from additions.
- 16.
We provide plugins for Redmine and Trac (http://trac.edgewall.org/).
- 17.
- 18.
Although the messages could also be inspected in String representation, the UML representation is much clearer and more concise.
- 19.
The service is publicly available since 2011 (see http://www.paose.net).
- 20.
The Petri net is presented as a whole, in order to show the final result of the refinement process. Most of the details, such as declarations are only of minor importance. The main details are presented in a magnified version in Fig. 11 for convenient inspection.
- 21.
WSDL, SOAP, UDDI (WSU).
- 22.
Web Application Description Language (WADL): http://java.net/projects/wadl.
- 23.
- 24.
Service-Technology: http://service-technology.org/tools/.
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Acknowledgment
We would like to thank the TGI group of the Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg and especially Dr. Daniel Moldt for the support, constructive criticism and fruitful discussions.
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Betz, T., Cabac, L., Duvigneau, M., Wagner, T., Wester-Ebbinghaus, M. (2014). Software Engineering with Petri Nets: A Web Service and Agent Perspective. In: Koutny, M., Haddad, S., Yakovlev, A. (eds) Transactions on Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency IX. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8910. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45730-6_3
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