TY  - JOUR
EP  - 213
ID  - eprints1563
UR  - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167642311000694
TI  - Using formal methods to develop WS-BPEL applications
AV  - public
KW  - Service-oriented architectures
KW  -  Web services
KW  -  Formal methods
KW  -  WS-BPEL
KW  -  Operational semantics
KW  -  Compilers
N2  - In recent years, WS-BPEL has become a de facto standard language for orchestration of Web Services. However, there are still some well-known difficulties that make programming
in WS-BPEL a tricky task. In this paper, we firstly point out major loose points of the WS-BPEL specification by means of many examples, some of which are also exploited
to test and compare the behaviour of three of the most known freely available WS-BPEL engines. We show that, as a matter of fact, these engines implement different
semantics, which undermines portability of WS-BPEL programs over different platforms. Then we introduce Blite, a prototypical orchestration language equipped with a formal
operational semantics, which is closely inspired by, but simpler than, WS-BPEL. Indeed, Blite is designed around some of WS-BPEL distinctive features like partner links, process termination, message correlation, long-running business transactions and compensation handlers. Finally, we present BliteC, a software tool supporting a rapid and easy development of WS-BPEL applications via translation of service orchestrations written in Blite into executable WS-BPEL programs. We illustrate our approach by means of a running example borrowed from the official specification of WS-BPEL.
SN  - 0167-6423
VL  - 77
IS  - 3
JF  - Science of Computer Programming
Y1  - 2012///
SP  - 189
A1  - Lapadula, Alessandro
A1  - Pugliese, Rosario
A1  - Tiezzi, Francesco
PB  - Elsevier
ER  -