Criteria-Based Software Process Transaction Model

Transaction management is the key component of process-sensitive engineering environments (PSEE). In recent years, several advanced transaction models have been proposed to support long transaction. However, in view of specific characteristic in software process transaction, those models only meet its partial requirements. Moreover, no commercial or academic results of nested cooperative transaction models have reached a status stable enough for commercial implementation. It remains a real challenge to the transaction mechanism of PSEE. In this paper, a criteria-based transaction model E-Process/TM is presented, that may address the key features of software process, i.e. interactive user control, long-duration activities, iterative approach and multi-user cooperation on shared persistent data. Based on user defined correctness criteria, E-Process/TM offers inherent benefits in flexibility and openness. By now, this model has been implemented in a commercial PSEE product, and applied in practice successfully.