Experiences in enhancing existing BPM Tools with BPEL Import and Export Jan MendlingVienna University of Economics Kristian Bisgaard LassenUniversity of Aarhus Uwe ZdunVienna University of Technology

Folie 2 You have to support BPEL… 2. Enhance… Export Import 1. Native BPEL Engine Store Load No arbitrary cycles

Folie 3 Agenda 1.How to design BPEL import and export? 2.How to apply Transformation Strategies? 3.Beyond transformation strategies 4.Conclusion

Folie 4 Agenda How to design BPEL import and export?

Folie 5 A BPEL Process

Folie 6 A BPEL Process: Structured Activities+Links

Folie 7 Recent Papers X to BPEL: Baina et al.: Model-Driven Web Service Development. In CAiSE Gardner. UML Modelling of Automated Business Processes with a Mapping to BPEL4WS. In First European Workshop on Object Orientation and Web Services at ECOOP Hofreiter and Huemer. Transforming UMM Business Collaboration Models to BPEL. OTM Workshops Mendling and Hafner. From Inter-Organizational Workflows to Process Execution: Generating BPEL from WS-CDL. OTM Workshops Moon et al. Transformation Algorithms between BPEL4WS and BPML for the Executable Business Process. In WETICE van der Aalst, Jørgensen and Lassen. Let’s Go All the Way: From Requirements via Colored Workflow Nets to a BPEL Implementation of a New Bank System. In CoopIS White. Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). Specification, BPMI.org, Mendling, J. Ziemann: Transformation of BPEL Processes to EPCs. In EPK Koschmider, von Mevius: A Petri Net Based Approach for Process Model Driven Deduction of BPEL Code. OTM Workshops BPEL to Y: Hinz, Schmidt, and Stahl. Transforming BPEL to Petri Nets. In BPM Mendling and Ziemann. EPK-Visualisierung von BPEL4WS Prozessdefinitionen. In Workshop on Software Reengineering, 2005.

Folie 8 Important Properties Structured Process Graph Acyclic Process Graph Structured BPEL control flow

Folie 9 Transformation Strategies for Export

Folie 10 Transformation Strategies for Import

Folie 11 Agenda How to apply Transformation Strategies?

Folie 12 Proprietary Workflow Designer Element Preservation Strategy

Folie 13 Extra Elements of the Workflow Designer Sub-workflows Paste the subprocess into a BPEL scope Specific predefined step actions Abstract step action class as default Overridden for specific step actions, e.g., BPELJ for Inline Java Additional Step Node attributes Annotated to BPEL activities as attributes in a different namespace

Folie 14 Illustration of the export

Folie 15 Agenda Beyond transformation strategies

Folie 16 Further Approaches for Graph to BPEL C. Ouyang, M. Dumas, S. Breutel, and A. H.M. ter Hofstede. Translating Standard Process Models to BPEL. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE), LNCS, Idea: Calculate precondition sets for every activity Send completion message to itself Event handlers activate the next activity Limitations: Re-Import of such BPEL is difficult

Folie 17 Further Approaches for Graph to BPEL II Zhao, W., Hauser, R., Bhattacharya, K., Bryant, B. R., and Cao, F. (2006). Compiling business processes: untangling unstructured loops in irreducible flow graphs. Int. Journal of Web and Grid Services, 2(1): Idea: Transform unstructured to structured models Limitations: Not always possible if concurrency is in the model

Folie 18 Agenda Conclusion

Folie 19 Conclusion Transformation strategies… provide systematic initial approach have to be extended and adapted BPEL not directly suited for exchanging workflow models BPEL extensions like BPEL4People, BPEL-SPE, BPELJ help Further information has to be annotated

Folie 20 Agenda Thank you