A Novel Approach to Modeling Enterprise Services Leveraging Object Cloning and Multilevel Classification

Object-oriented modeling is concerned with capturing common properties of objects. The dominant thinking in this realm is to classify objects that share certain properties into what is called a class, which in turn enables us to instantiate additional objects. Deep modeling takes a step further by introducing the notion of clabject that might be instantiated multiple times until its instantiation potency runs out. This initiative has gained a lot of momentum of late, primarily due to the inadequacy of the classical mechanics of two-level object instantiation. There exists a less familiar way of reasoning in object-orientation that takes its root from the prototype theory. We believe that they co-exist as two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, prototype-based modeling still stays on the sidelines in the mainstream of conceptual modeling and related areas (e.g., enterprise modeling). In this paper, we argue that the two methods actually complement each other. We propose a hybrid modeling suite that allows for both instantiation and cloning in enterprise modeling. We formally state that a clabject not only features the so-called potency (i.e., for how many levels this clabject might further be classified) but also carries the notion of characteristics (i.e., the extent to which this clabject resembles those being represented). We demonstrate our novel ways of modeling for capturing business processes in a service-oriented enterprise architecture.