Technical Report TR-2006-10

BibliographyKarastoyanova, Dimka; Khalaf, Rania; Schroth, Ralf; Paluszek, Michael; Leymann, Frank: BPEL Event Model.
University of Stuttgart, Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Information Technology, Technical Report Computer Science No. 2006/10.
16 pages, english.
CR-SchemaC.2.4 (Distributed Systems)
D.2.6 (Software Engineering Programming Environments)
D.2.11 (Software Engineering Software Architectures)
D.2.12 (Software Engineering Interoperability)
H.4.1 (Office Automation)
KeywordsBPEL; event model; coordination; flexibility; transactions; process engine; BPEL processor; internal and external events; process execution control
Abstract

The document presents an engine-independent BPEL event model. We present two groups of events - events related to the life cycle of BPEL processes that are produced by the process execution environment, and events used to control or influence the life cycle of BPEL processes produced by applications external to the BPEL processor. The events produced by the BPEL processor are notifying state changes in the life cycle of processes, activities, loops and fragmented loops, scopes and fragmented scopes, BPEL links. Some of the state transitions, depending on the scenario they are used in, may be fired only if a particular action/event is signaled by an external application. This means that a process instance would remain blocked in a particular state if the external event is not notified to the BPEL engine. The external events are meant to control the execution of BPEL processes, in particular to unblock process instances being in particular states, as well as enforce state transitions from the outside. The event model is used by the authors of the report in several projects, all utilizing process life cycle events in different scenarios. This report represents an attempt to create an event model common to several projects and help reuse of research results and software, and foster cooperation. In general, the model is meant to be independent of BPEL processor implementation. Some of the assumptions in the presented event model are inspired by a particular implementation, e.g. fault handling and compensation; however they are kept as general as possible, so that they can be mapped on other engine-specific approaches to tackle faults and support compensation. In addition, the report draws on the experience of some of the authors in business process management and software development.

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CopyrightDimka Karastoyanova, Rania Khalaf, Ralf Schroth, Michael Paluszek, Frank Leymann
ContactDimka Karastoyanova, dimka.karastoyanova@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
Department(s)University of Stuttgart, Institute of Architecture of Application Systems, Architecture of Application Systems
Entry dateMarch 13, 2007
   Publ. Computer Science