C WS: A Timed Service-Oriented Calculus

Emerging Research Topics, 2012

Currently, Web services give place to active research and this is due both to industrial and theoretical factors. On one hand, Web services are essential as the design model of applications dedicated to the electronic business. On the other hand, this model aims to become one of the major formalisms for the design of distributed and cooperative applications in an open environment (the Internet). In this paper, we will focus on two features of Web services. The first one concerns the interaction problem: given the interaction protocol of a Web service described in BPEL, how to generate the appropriate client? Our approach is based on a formal semantics for BPEL via process algebra and yields an algorithm which decides whether such a client exists and synthetize the description of this client as a (timed) automaton. The second one concerns the design process of a service. We propose a method which proceeds by two successive refinements: first the service is described via UML, then refined in a BPEL model and finally enlarged with JAVA code using JCSWL, a new language that we introduce here. Our solutions are integrated in a service development framework that will be presented in a synthetic way.

Currently, Web services give place to active research and this is due both to industrial and theoretical factors. On one hand, Web services are essential as the design model of applications dedicated to the electronic business. On the other hand, this model aims to become one of the major formalisms for the design of distributed and cooperative applications in an open environment (the Internet). In this paper, we will focus on two features of Web services. The first one concerns the interaction problem: given the interaction protocol of a Web service described in BPEL, how to generate the appropriate client? Our approach is based on a formal semantics for BPEL via process algebra and yields an algorithm which decides whether such a client exists and synthetize the description of this client as a (timed) automaton. The second one concerns the design process of a service. We propose a method which proceeds by two successive refinements: first the service is described via UML, then refined in a BPEL model and finally enlarged with JAVA code using JCSWL, a new language that we introduce here. Our solutions are integrated in a service development framework that will be presented in a synthetic way.

2009

We introduce a symbolic characterisation of the operational semantics of COWS, a formal language for specifying and combining service-oriented applications, while modelling their dynamic behaviour. This alternative semantics avoids infinite representations of COWS terms due to the value-passing nature of communication in COWS and is more amenable for automatic manipulation by analytical tools, such as e.g. equivalence and model checkers. We illustrate our approach through a 'translation service' scenario.

2011

We tackle the problem of providing rigorous formal foundations to current software engineering technologies for web services, and especially to WSDL and WS-BPEL, two of the most used XML-based standard languages for web services. We focus on a simplified fragment of WS-BPEL sufficiently expressive to model asynchronous interactions among web services in a network context. We present this language as a process calculuslike formalism, that we call WS-CALCULUS, for which we define an operational semantics and a type system. The semantics provides a precise operational model of programs, while the type system forces a clean programming discipline for integrating collaborating services. We prove that the operational semantics of WS-CALCULUS and the type system are 'sound' and apply our approach to some illustrative examples. We expect that our formal development can be used to make the relationship between WS-BPEL programs and the associated WSDL documents precise and to support verification of their conformance. Keywords Web services • WSDL • WS-BPEL • process calculi • type systems The work presented in this paper is a much extended and revised version of (Lapadula et al, 2006), and has been partially supported by EU Project "Software Engineering for Service-Oriented Overlay Computers" (SENSORIA), IST-2005-016004.

Abstr act. When set of basic web service is built, the next step is to create more complex one. A programmatic approach uses declarative language such as BPEL. This kind of representation is verbose and needs assistance for the creation of business process. We defined a generative strategy leading by formal specification. Because, web service composition languages use standard operators like sequence, choice and parallel; process algebras are right candidate for their design. We use higher order pi calculus for specification of orchestration and consider it as a basis for generating BPEL skeleton. After enrichment of BPEL definition, we interpret it by mobile agents. They play role of a conductor which evaluates a part or a whole BPEL definition. This mobile engine reduces message traffic by replacing message transfer into local message operating. We use mobile agent as distributed conductor of business processes.

2007

Service Oriented Computing is a new programming paradigm for addressing distributed system design issues. Services are autonomous computational entities which can be dynamically discovered and composed in order to form more complex systems able to achieve different kinds of task. E-government, e-business and e-science are some examples of the IT areas where Service Oriented Computing will be exploited in the next years. At present, the most credited Service Oriented Computing technology is that of Web Services, whose specifications are enriched day by day by industrial consortia without following a precise and rigorous approach. This PhD thesis aims, on the one hand, at modelling Service Oriented Computing in a formal way in order to precisely define the main concepts it is based upon and, on the other hand, at defining a new approach, called bipolar approach, for addressing system design issues by synergically exploiting choreography and orchestration languages related by means of ...

2005

Recently the term Web Services Orchestration has been introduced to address composition and coordination of Web Services. Several languages to describe orchestration for business processes have been presented and many of them use concepts such as long-running transactions and compensations to cope with error handling. WS-BPEL is currently the best suited in this field. However, its complexity hinders rigorous treatment. In this paper we address the notion of orchestration from a formal point of view, with particular attention to transactions and compensations. In particular, we discuss web π ∞ an untimed subcalculus of web π [15] which is a simple and conservative extension of the π-calculus. We introduce it as a theoretical and foundational model for Web Services coordination. We simplify some semantical and pragmatical aspects, in particular regarding temporization, gaining a better understanding of the fundamental issues. To discuss the usefulness of the language we consider a case study: we formalize an e-commerce transactional scenario drawing on a case presented in our previous work [12].

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2009

The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL) is the standard for implementing orchestrated business processes designed but not limited to, as web services. BPEL is a powerful language but lacks a widely accepted formal semantics, and this makes it difficult to formally validate the correct execution of BPEL implementations. In the other hand, process algebras have proved their efficiency in the specification of web services orchestrations. In this paper we improve the BP-calculus, a π-calculus based formalism designed to ease the automatic generation of verified BPEL code, by defining specific equivalence and logic in order to verify BPEL implementations through their formal specification expressed in this calculus. The formal specification of service-oriented applications allows the checking of functional properties described by means of the new logic, that is shown to be well suited to capture peculiar aspects of services formalized in π-like languages. As an illustrative example, we present the BP-calculus specification and the verification results of a trade market service scenario.

2013

WS-BPEL is way to orchestrate web services. It defines business processes that interact with external entities through web service operations using WSDL. The existing system defines service flow using Web Services based on WSDL. We have proposed BPEL-TC, an extension to existing WS-BPEL which uses temporally customized Web Services as a model for process decomposition and assembly. WSDL-TC handles both backward compatible and incompatible changes and also maintains various versions of the artifacts that results due to changes over time and customizations desired by the users. A formal representation of BPEL-TC is also presented using Kleene Algebra with Test (KAT).

Enterprise and Organizational Modeling and Simulation, 2010

Real-Time issues are not usually considered when describing and composing web services. However, modern web services are usually involved in the software implementation of time-constrained business processes [1]. The satisfaction of time constraints is crucial in order to ensure the validity of systems where the response to a certain stimulation has to take place in a shortened period of time. Thus, the service composition problem becomes more complex, since time restrictions should be taken into account both in the choreography and orchestration processes in order to establish the temporal consistency of the web services. In this paper, we present a formal approach for real-time service orchestration and choreography. In this regard, we use UML-RT as a visual and user-friendly notation in order to model services and their interactions, Timed CSP as an underlying formal grounding to enable services verification and WS-BPEL as an execution language.