A Survey of Tool Support for the Animation of IT Services Process Models Execution

Abstract

Process modeling notations are frequently used to model IT service management processes, namely in the realm of ITIL. The nature of IT services, such as in checking SLAs fulfillment, calls for tool provision of model-based animation features for process execution to be used for monitoring, simulation, replay or scenario identification purposes. This paper reports the results of a structured review on those animation features, as provided by state-of-the-art process simulation, modeling and mining tools. A process animation assessment framework is proposed. Conclusions drawn point out to several shortcomings of the current state of the art.