Analyzing Conversations of Web Services Tevfik Bultan Department of Computer Science University of California, Santa Barbara Joint work with Xiang Fu, Georgia Southwestern State University Jianwen Su, University of California, Santa Barbara

Going to Lunch at UCSB Before Xiang graduated from UCSB, Xiang, Jianwen and I were using the following protocol for going to lunch: –Sometime around noon one of us would call another one by phone and tell him where and when we would meet for lunch. –The receiver of this first call would call the remaining peer and pass the information. Let’s call this protocol the First Caller Decides (FCD) protocol.

!tj1 ?xt1 !tx1 ?jt1 !tx2 Tevfik !tj2 ?jt2 ?xt2 !xj1 ?tx1 !xt1 ?jx1 !xt2 Xiang !xj2 ?jx2 ?tx2 !jt1 ?xj1 !jx1 ?tj1 !jx2 Jianwen !jt2 ?tj2 ?xj2 Implementation of the FCD Protocol t x 1 from Tevfik to Xiang 1 st message Message Labels: ! send ? receive

FCD Protocol does not Work with Voic When the university installed a voic system FCD protocol started causing problems –We were showing up at different restaurants at different times! Example scenario: tx1, jx1, xj2 The messages jx1 and xj2 are not consumed –Note that this scenario is not possible without voic !

A Different Lunch Protocol Jianwen suggested that we change our lunch protocol as follows: –As the most senior researcher among us Jianwen would make the first call to either Xiang or Tevfik and tell when and where we would meet for lunch. –Then, the receiver of this call would pass the information to the other peer. –Let’s call this protocol the Jianwen Decides (JD) protocol

?xt ?jt !tx TevfikXiangJianwen ?tx ?jx !xt !jt!jx Implementation of the JD Protocol JD protocol works fine with voic !

Conversation Protocols The FCD and JD protocols specify a set of conversations The implementations I showed are supposed to generate the set of conversations specified by these protocols We can specify the set of conversations without showing how the peers implement them, we call such a specification a conversation protocol

tj1tx1 xj2 xt1xj1jt1jx1 jx2tj2jt2tx2xt2 FCD Protocol jtjx txxt JD Protocol FCD and JD Conversation Protocols Conversation set: {( tx1, xj2 ), ( tj1, jx2 ), ( xt1, tj2 ), ( xj1, jt2 ), ( jt1, tx2 ), ( jx1, xt2 )} Conversation set: {( jt, tx ), ( jx, xt )}

Observations & Questions The implementation of the FCD protocol behaves differently with synchronous and asynchronous communication whereas the implementation of the JD protocol behaves the same. –Can we find a way to identify such implementations? The implementation of the FCD protocol does not obey the FCD protocol if asynchronous communication is used whereas the implementation of the JD protocol obeys the JD protocol even if asynchronous communication used. –Given a conversation protocol can we figure out if there is an implementation which generates the same conversation set?

Synchronizability and Realizability Analyses We formalized these observations and questions using synchronizability and realizability analyses –The implementation of the JD protocol is synchronizable but the implementation of the FCD protocol is not synchronizable –The JD protocol is realizable but the FCD protocol is not realizable

Outline Web Service Composition Model Capturing Global Behaviors –Conversations Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Specification and Verification –Realizability vs. Synchronizability XML messaging –MSL, XPath –Translation to Promela Web Service Analysis Tool Conclusions and Future Work

Characteristics of Web Services Loosely coupled, interaction through standardized interfaces Standardized data transmission via XML Asynchronous messaging Platform independent (.NET, J2EE) Data Type Interface Behavior Message BPEL4WS Web Service Standards Implementation Platforms Microsoft.Net, Sun J2EE WSDL SOAP XML Schema XML WS-CDL Interaction

Challenges in Verification of Web Services Distributed nature, no central control –How do we model the global behavior? –How do we specify the global properties? Asynchronous messaging introduces undecidability in analysis –How do we check the global behavior? –How do we enforce the global behavior? XML data manipulation –How do we specify the XML messages? –How do we verify properties related to data?

A Model for Composite Web Services tx xt jxjt Peer T Peer J Peer X A composite web service consists of –a finite set of peers Lunch example: T, X, J –and a finite set of message classes Lunch example (JD protocol) : jt, tx, jx, xt

Communication Model We assume that the messages among the peers are exchanged using reliable and asynchronous messaging –FIFO and unbounded message queues This model is similar to industry efforts such as –JMS (Java Message Service) –MSMQ (Microsoft Message Queuing Service) tx Peer TPeer X tx

Conversations A virtual watcher records the messages as they are sent Watcher A conversation is a sequence of messages the watcher sees during an execution [Bultan, Fu, Hull, Su WWW’03] tx jt Peer T Peer J Peer X txjt

Effects of Asynchronous Communication Question: Given a composite web service, is the set of conversations a regular set? Even when messages do not have any content and the peers are finite state machines the conversation set may not be regular Reason: asynchronous communication with unbounded queues Bounded queues or synchronous communication  Conversation set always regular

Properties of Conversations The notion of conversation enables us to reason about temporal properties of the composite web services LTL framework extends naturally to conversations –LTL temporal operators X (neXt), U (Until), G (Globally), F (Future) –Atomic properties Predicates on message classes (or contents) Example: G ( payment  F receipt ) Model checking problem: Given an LTL property, does the conversation set satisfy the property?

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Bottom-up approach Specify the behavior of each peer The global communication behavior (conversation set) is implicitly defined based on the composed behavior of the peers Global communication behavior is hard to understand and analyze Top-down approach Specify the global communication behavior (conversation set) explicitly as a protocol Ensure that the conversations generated by the peers obey the protocol

Conversation Protocol GF( tx  xt )) ? LTL property Peer T Peer J Peer X jt tx xt jx Conversation Schema Input Queue... Virtual Watcher GF( tx  xt )) ? LTL property ?xt ?jt !tx Peer TPeer X ?tx ?jx !xt Peer J !jt!jx jtjx txxt

Conversation Protocols Conversation Protocol: –An automaton that accepts the desired conversation set A conversation protocol is a contract agreed by all peers –Each peer must act according to the protocol For reactive protocols with infinite message sequences we use: –Büchi automata which accept infinite strings For specifying message contents, we use: –Guarded automata –Guards are constraints on the message contents

Synthesize Peer Implementations Conversation protocol specifies the global communication behavior –How do we implement the peers? How do we obtain the contracts that peers have to obey from the global contract specified by the conversation protocol? Project the global protocol to each peer –By dropping unrelated messages for each peer

Interesting Question If this equality holds the conversation protocol is realizable Are there conditions which ensure the equivalence? Conversations generated by the projected services Conversations specified by the conversation protocol  ?

Realizability Problem Not all conversation protocols are realizable! A  B: m1 C  D: m2 Conversation protocol m2 m1 Conversation “ m2 m1 ” will be generated by all peer implementations which follow the protocol !m1 ?m1 !m2 ?m2 Peer APeer BPeer CPeer D Projection of the conversation protocol to the peers

Another Non-Realizable Protocol m3 m1 m2 m2 m1 m3 m1 m2 m3 A  B: m1 B  A: m2 A  C: m3 B  A: m2 A  B: m1 A B C m1 m2 m3 Watcher AB C Generated conversation: BA, C

Realizability Conditions Three sufficient conditions for realizability (no message content) [Fu, Bultan, Su, CIAA’03, TCS’04] Lossless join –Conversation set should be equivalent to the join of its projections to each peer Synchronous compatible –When the projections are composed synchronously, there should not be a state where a peer is ready to send a message while the corresponding receiver is not ready to receive Autonomous –At any state, each peer should be able to do only one of the following: send, receive or terminate (a peer can still choose among multiple messages)

Realizability Conditions A  B: m1 C  D: m2 A  B: m1 B  A: m2 A  C: m3 B  A: m2 A  B: m1 Following protocols fail one of the three conditions but satisfy the other two Not lossless join Not autonomous A  B: m1 C  A: m2 Not synchronous compatible

Bottom-Up Approach We know that analyzing conversations of composite web services is difficult due to asynchronous communication –Model checking for conversation properties is undecidable even for finite state peers The question is: –Can we identify the composite web services where asynchronous communication does not create a problem?

Three Examples, Example 1 requesterserver !r 2 ?a 1 ?a 2 !e !r 1 Conversation set is regular: ( r 1 a 1 | r 2 a 2 )* eConversation set is regular: ( r 1 a 1 | r 2 a 2 )* e During all executions the message queues are bounded r 1, r 2 a 1, a 2 e ?r 1 !a 1 !a 2 ?r 2 ?e

Example 2 Conversation set is not regularConversation set is not regular Queues are not bounded requesterserver !r 2 ?a 1 ?a 2 !e !r 1 r 1, r 2 a 1, a 2 e ?r 1 !a 1 !a 2 ?r 2 ?e

Example 3 Conversation set is regular: ( r 1 | r 2 | ra )* eConversation set is regular: ( r 1 | r 2 | ra )* e Queues are not bounded requesterserver !r 2 ?a!r !e !r 1 r 1, r 2 a 1, a 2 e ?r 1 ?r 2 ?e ?r !a

State Spaces of the Three Examples queue length # of states in thousands Verification of Examples 2 and 3 are difficult even if we bound the queue length How can we distinguish Examples 1 and 3 (with regular conversation sets) from 2? –Synchronizability Analysis

Synchronizability Analysis A composite web service is synchronizable, if its conversation set does not change –when asynchronous communication is replaced with synchronous communication If a composite web service is synchronizable we can check the properties about its conversations using synchronous communication semantics –For finite state peers this is a finite state model checking problem

Synchronizability Analysis A composite web service is synchronizable, if it satisfies the synchronous compatible and autonomous conditions [Fu, Bultan, Su WWW’04, TSE] Connection between realizability and synchronizability: –A conversation protocol is realizable if its projections to peers are synchronizable and the protocol itself satisfies the lossless join condition

Are These Conditions Too Restrictive? Problem SetSizePass? SourceName#msg#states#trans. ISSTA’04SAS91215yes IBM Conv. Support Project CvSetup444yes MetaConv446no Chat245yes Buy556yes Haggle858no AMAB81015yes BPEL spec shipping233yes Loan666yes Auction9910yes Collaxa. com StarLoan677yes Cauction576yes

BPEL to GFSA Guarded automata GFSA to Promela (bounded queue) BPEL Web Services Promela Synchronizability Analysis GFSA to Promela (synchronous communication) Intermediate Representation Conversation Protocol Front End Realizability Analysis Guarded automaton skip GFSA parser success fail GFSA to Promela (single process, no communication) success fail AnalysisBack End (bottom-up) (top-down) Verification Languages Web Service Analysis Tool (WSAT) [Fu, Bultan, Su CAV’04]

Guarded Automata Model Uses XML messages Uses MSL for declaring message types –MSL (Model Schema Language) is a compact formal model language which captures core features of XML Schema Uses XPath expressions for guards –XPath is a language for writing expressions (queries) that navigate through XML trees and return a set of answer nodes

Related Work Conversation specification –IBM Conversation support project –Conversation support for business process integration [Hanson, Nandi, Kumaran EDOCC’02] –Orchestrating computations on the world-wide web [Choi, Garg, Rai, Misram, Vin EuroPar’02] Realizability problem –Realizability of Message Sequence Charts (MSC) [Alur, Etassami, Yannakakis ICSE’00, ICALP’01]

Related Work Verification of web services –Simulation, verification, composition of web services using a Petri net model [Narayanan, McIlraith WWW’02] –BPEL verification using a process algebra model and Concurrency Workbench [Koshkina, van Breugel TAV- WEB’03] –Using MSC to model BPEL web services which are translated to labeled transition systems and verified using model checking [Foster, Uchitel, Magee, Kramer ASE’03] –Model checking Web Service Flow Language specifications using SPIN [Nakajima ICWE’04]

Current and Future Work Extending the source and target languages Symbolic analysis [Fu, Bultan, Su ICWS’04, JWSR] Abstraction Design for verification for web services [Betin-Can, Bultan WWW’05, ICWS’05]

Translator for bottom-up specifications Guarded automata Translation with bounded queue Synchronizability Analysis Translation with synchronous communication Intermediate Representation Conversation Protocols Front End Realizability Analysis Guarded automaton skip Translator for top-down specifications success fail Translation with single process, no communication success fail AnalysisBack End BPEL Web Service Specification Languages DAML-S WS-CDL Promela SMV Action Language Verification Languages... Automated Abstraction Current and Future Work