Business

Layer MetaModel

 Business Layer MetaModel
Figure shows the metamodel of business layer concepts. The metamodel follows the structure of the generic metamodel introduced
in the previous chapter. However, this layer also includes a number of additional informational concepts which are relevant in the
business domain: a product and associated contract, the meaning of business objects, and the value of products of business services.

Structural Concepts
The structure aspect at the business layer refers to the static structure of an organization, in terms of the entities that make up the
organization and their relationships.
Two types of entities are distinguished:
The active entities that are the subjects (e.g., business actors or business roles) that perform behavior such as business
processes or functions (capabilities). Business actors may be individual persons (e.g., customers or employees), but also
groups of people (organization units) and resources that have a permanent (or at least long-term) status within the
organizations. Typical examples of the latter are a department and a business unit.
The passive entities (business objects) that are manipulated by behavior such as business processes or functions. The passive
entities represent the important concepts in which the business thinks about a domain.
Architectural descriptions focus on structure, which means that the inter-relationships of entities within an organization play an
important role. To make this explicit, the concept of business collaboration has been introduced.

Business Actor
A business actor performs the behavior assigned to (one or more) business roles. Examples of business actors are humans,
departments, and business units. A business actor may be assigned to one or more business roles.

 Business Layer MetaModel

Business Role
Business processes or business functions are assigned to a single business role with certain responsibilities or skills. A business actor
that is assigned to a business role ultimately performs the corresponding behavior. In addition to the relation of a business role with
behavior, a business role is also useful in a (structural) organizational sense; for instance, in the division of labor within an
organization.

 Business Layer MetaModel
A business role may be assigned to one or more business processes or business functions, while a business actor may be assigned to
a business role. A business interface or an application interface may be used by a business role, while a business interface may be
part of a business role.

Business Interface
A business interface specifies how the functionality of a business role can be used by other business roles (provided interface), or
which functionality the business roles requires from its environment (required interface). A business interface exposes a business
service to the environment. The same business service may be exposed through different interfaces.
A business interface may be part of a business role through a composition relation, which is not shown in the standard notation, and
a business interface may be used by a business role. A business interface may be assigned to one or more business services, which
means that these services are exposed by the interface.

 Business Layer MetaModel

Business Process
A business process describes the internal behavior performed by a business role that is required to produce a set of products and
services. For a consumer the products and services are relevant and the required behavior is merely a black box, hence the
designation internal.

 Business Layer MetaModel

In comparison to a business interaction, in which more than two business roles are (interactively) involved, only one business role is
involved with a business process. However, a (complex) business process may consist of sub-processes assigned to different
business roles.
There is a potential many-to-many relation between business processes and business functions. Informally speaking, processes
describe some kind of flow of activities, whereas functions group activities according to required skills, knowledge, resources, etc.