Automatic run-time versioning for BPEL processes

Authors

Abstract

We describe a middleware solution for automatic run-time process versioning in Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and then analyse its impact in terms of scalability and performance. Business processes change in response to business needs, but the deployment of new ver- sions to a BPEL engine must ensure that running instances are not disrupted and can conclude following their original workflows. Our solution is implemented as a standalone com- ponent that manages versioning transparently to the process editor, the orchestration engine, the web services used by the process, and the end-user. We have tested it for almost 1 year in the production environment of a telecommuni- cations company, without significant overhead in terms of process invocation time.

Keywords

Business process versioning, Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), BPEL versioning, Service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web services, Middleware

Subject

Business process versioning

Journal

Service Oriented Computing and Applications, Springer-Verlag London 2017, June 2017

DOI