Architecting a business process versioning middleware for a major telecommunications company

Authors

Abstract

We describe the architecture and development of a business process versioning middleware easily adaptable for different BPEL engines. This self-contained system is implemented using two modules ' Deployer and Gateway ' that transparently intercept interactions between the process editor, BPEL engine, and service clients, ensuring that multiple versions of any given process can co-exist simultaneously. Long-running processes can thus complete their original workflows even if modified versions are deployed and run in parallel, as dictated by evolving business needs. The overhead introduced by our system is very low, at an average of less than 15% increase in memory usage and 10% increase in process invocation time, which enables its use in the live environment of a major telecommunications company, for which it was developed. Being autonomous from the BPEL engine, this system facilitates upgrades and even full replacement of this component. It also enhances flexibility in production environments, namely by easing partial version rollbacks of business processes. Finally, with small changes, it can provide load-balancing capabilities for a farm of BPEL engines.

Subject

Enterprise Application Integration

Related Project

PRADO - PRocess analysis and Activities DefinitOn

Conference

6th IEEE European Conference on Web Services, Business, November 2008