BPEL4WS

Business Process Execution Language for Web Services

BPEL4WS provides a language for the formal specification of business processes and business interaction protocols. By doing so, it extends the Web services interaction model and enables it to support business transactions. BPEL4WS defines an interoperable integration model that should facilitate the expansion of automated process integration in both the intra-corporate and the business-to-business spaces.

Executable business processes model actual behavior of a participant in a business interaction. Business protocols, in contrast, use process descriptions that specify the mutually visible message exchange behavior of each of the parties involved in the protocol, without revealing their internal behavior. The process descriptions for business protocols are called abstract processes. BPEL4WS is meant to be used to model the behavior of both executable and abstract processes. [excerpt from the specification].

• Specification
• http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpel/

Resources

• Pattern-Based Analysis of BPEL4WS
• ActiveBPEL - open source engine for BPEL4WS
• BPWS4J - IBM's implementation of BPEL4WS runtime

Related

• BPMN
• BPWS4J

Remarks

Workflow based composition language geared towards Service Oriented Computing and layered as part of the WS technology stack BPEL4WS process model on top of WSDL; result of merge WSFL & XLANG; BPWS4J-BPEL implementation process model w/ parser writer (similar to WSDL4J);

BPEL4WS pecifies how to connect multiple web service to provide new WS; same language to define executable and abstract process; executable process describes everything needed to execute; support for basic WS activities: invoke, receive, reply (Indiana UNiv integration OGSI/WSRF+BPEL)