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Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Abstract BPEL (was RE: [wsbpel] FAQ)


Title: Message

The only comment I disagree with is “it is better to leave BPEL for what it is designed to do - the executable "private process" part of our architecture

 

If you read the introduction to the specification, it is hopefully quite clear that the specification is designed to provide a common set of modeling concepts for use in both public and private process descriptions.

 

Satish

 


From: Steve Capell [mailto:steve.capell@redwahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 3:25 PM
To: 'Jean-Jacques Dubray'; Satish Thatte; 'Furniss, Peter'; ygoland@bea.com; John Evdemon; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org; Dave Welsh; 'Monica J. Martin'
Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Abstract BPEL (was RE: [wsbpel] FAQ)

 

Dear all,

 

Thank you for all your responses.  Everyone has a good point, not the least of which is that I should go away and document a use case....

 

Just to clarify a few things:

  • Yes, I am simplifying things a bit - reason is we need to deploy something now that works for small & medium businesses and we can afford to simplify things.  Part of the reasons we can simplify things is that we are in a position to define the "public process" for/with industry sectors and also to build corresponding "private" process components (pre-packaged) for specific back-office applications.  The idea is that we can target simple collaborative processes and common back-office applications. 
  • I agree that basic WS cannot address QOS for B2B collaborations.  However I see no reason why the extended stack inclusing things like WS-RM, WS-Security, WS-Transaction, etc - governed by a WS-Policy assertion cannot achieve the required result.  For those familiar with ebXML, I (perhaps incorrectly) see SOAP+WSRM+WS-Security = ebXML MSH and that WSDL+WS-Policy = CPP and (I had hoped) "Abstract" BPEL = BPSS.  Lets not get into a discussion about whether things like WS-Policy are genuinely part of the WS stack (since it is still a vendor specification)....Also I do realise that WS-Policy itself is just a syntax to express policies and that some specific semantics (assertions) would need to be developed to address this need.
  • BPEL is certainly an "execution" language first and maybe needs to stay that way.  The discussion is really around the question of whether or not WS-BPEL is going to "evolve" into another specification that also addresses the B2B collaboration space.  Frankly I'm not too worried whether it does or not.  If not then we'll adopt some other suitable protocol for that part of the stack.  Perhaps as many have suggested it is better to leave BPEL for what it is designed to do - the executable "private process" part of our architecture.
  • For the short term, the "private process" (essentially a bpel and associated xsd, xslt, xforms running on compliant runtime engine) will be hand crafted to bridge the gap between a back-office application and a public process.  I had envisioned a time when I could import a public collaboration definition and backoffice API into a visual design time tool and efficiently create the bpel, xslt, xforms etc to bridge the gap.  I have not thought enough about how realistic that is.   Nevertheless, whether hand crafted or created with a nifty tool, our intention is to try to demonstrate reusability of the private process schema accross a community that shares the same back-office and "public process".  Even in a small country like Australia, there are communities like that with member numbers in the 10,000's.  Re-use of private process content can obviously deliver enormous potential savings.

For those that might be interested to understand what we are trying to do here in Australia, please take a look at www.bizdex.com.au.  Comments welcome.

 

Regards,

 

Steve Capell
RedWahoo
Sydney, Australia
Tel : +61 410 437854
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-----Original Message-----
From: Jean-Jacques Dubray [mailto:jeanjadu@Attachmate.com]
Sent: Friday, 24 October 2003 7:33 AM
To: 'Steve Capell'; 'Satish Thatte'; 'Furniss, Peter'; ygoland@bea.com; 'John Evdemon'; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org; 'Dave Welsh'; 'Monica J. Martin'
Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Abstract BPEL (was RE: [wsbpel] FAQ)

Steve:

I don't know if I am able/allowed to publish to this list (I just joined :-). IMHO, you will never be able to have a continuum between public and private choreography, let alone abstract and executable orchestration.

Since you mention BPSS, I feel that I might throw some comments about it. Ancient specifications (based on internet times) like BPSS have long established that most B2B interactions require a certain quality of service that only certain protocols can provide. Traditional QOS protocols, part of the ws-stack are helpless with that matter.

For instance BPSS offer at least two levels of protocols: what I call a "business reliable messaging" protocol and a "business transaction protocol" (Bob feel free to jump in to keep me honest on what I say). These protocols are essentials to carry some business activities (not all I grant you, something like the travel agent example does not need that). Assuming that the private chorerography or the deep orchestration layer will implement these protocols is not the best use of your choreography or orchestration resources. These protocols are far better handled by the "Business Service Interface" concept described in the ebXML architecture and the ebXML BPSS specification. I can only speak for myself, but more protocols are needed at the B2B level, I am assuming that the ebBP group will continue enriching these protocols that cannot be handled by your private choreography, before it touches your orchestration layer.

Hope that helps.

Jean-Jacques
tel: 425-649-6584
Cell: 508-333-7634

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Capell [mailto:steve.capell@redwahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 11:15 PM
To: 'Satish Thatte'; 'Furniss, Peter'; ygoland@bea.com; 'John Evdemon'; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org; 'Dave Welsh'
Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Abstract BPEL (was RE: [wsbpel] FAQ)

 

Satish

Are we confusing a "Business Domain" (eg supply chain) with a business process (eg "purchasing")?  In business process modelling (such as the UN/CEFACT BCF methodology) the collaborative "business process" is typically quite granular (eg an order and order response).  The process is a small part of a business domain such as supply chain. To describe the entire domain with an abstract bpel is a huge challenge but to describe a fairly granual collaboration strikes me as quite do-able and quite useful.

>From my perspective, I would like to be able to completely define a
"public process" using machine readable WS schema in a similar way to ebXML specifications.  For example, to describe a simple order / order response process such as resettaNet PIP3A4 using WS schema I would need:

1       An abstract ws-bpel defining the simple collaboration
2       A ws-policy assertion schema definin the QOS attributes of each
activity (non-repudiation, time to acknowledge, etc)
3       Two XSD schema (one for each message) representing the order and
orderResponse messages defined by the model.
4       Two wsdls (one for each party) with references to the xsd schema
(import), ws-policy (policyRef extension), and ws-bpel role (partnerLinkType extension). 

This complete machine readable "public process" can then be used to configure testing tools (for certification or compliant application, design time tools (for creating "private process" orchestrations, and runtime tools (for managing compliance to public process QOS requirements).


On behalf of the Australian government I am certainly hoping that ws-bpel will provide the capability to describe at least simple collabroative processes - otherwise we will have to fall back on things like ebXML BPSS - but then we'd lose the potential to glue together the "public collabroation" and "private orchestration" in one set of specifications & tools.

Regards,

Steve Capell
RedWahoo
Sydney, Australia
Tel : +61 410 437854
This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain information that is confidential and is subject to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately, and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of Red Wahoo Pty. Ltd. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. We do not accept any liability for loss or damage which may arise from your receipt of this e-mail.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Satish Thatte [mailto:satisht@microsoft.com]
Sent: Thursday, 23 October 2003 11:36 AM
To: Furniss, Peter; ygoland@bea.com; John Evdemon; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Abstract BPEL (was RE: [wsbpel] FAQ)

 

As I argued during my presentation at the first F2F, the idea that a neutral description of multi-party interaction is essential for business protocol definition is erroneous, and worse, too restrictive.  In particular protocols using full duplex communication are almost impossible to describe without separately describing the external behavior of each party, because the number of states corresponding to races becomes unmanageable and incomprehensible.  Think of a supply chain protocol where an order may be canceled at arbitrary points.  Most neutral protocol descriptions tend to be reduced to finite state machines that are also very poor at describing data dependent aspects, error recovery protocols, etc.  I expect this is what Peter is referring to when he speaks of "heading towards somehting much like on abstract bpel".

I therefore consider Yaron's objection to be groundless and advocate keeping the paragraph as is.

-----Original Message-----
From: Furniss, Peter [mailto:Peter.Furniss@choreology.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 4:42 PM
To: ygoland@bea.com; John Evdemon; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [wsbpel] Abstract BPEL (was RE: [wsbpel] FAQ)

Some of Yaron's comments on the FAQ (most of which I agree with) seem to relate to the power of abstract BPEL

paragraph from the proposed FAQ:

<quote>
The Business Process Execution Language is a XML-based language for formally describing interoperable business processes and business interaction protocols.  It defines how web services are connected together and in what sequence in order to accomplish a particular task

</quote>

to which Yaron comments :

<quote>
BPEL only provides a description of the behavior of a single player in a business process protocol. Since protocols require, by definition, more than one player BPEL is by definition unable to completely describe a business process protocol or to specify how different processes interact beyond describing the behavior of a single participant. Therefore I think this paragraph should be struck.

</quote>

which was very much my view until I had a conversation with Tony Andrews and got a better understanding of his presentation from the first face-to-face ( http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/wsbpel/200305/msg00172.html). It seemed some things I had thought would be necessary, and which I hadn't seen stated, and so assumed were not in view, were definitely

intended/expected:

        - there can be multiple abstract definitions for a single executable, each specifying the dynamic behaviour of one (or set of

related) interfaces, with the other interfaces handled by opaque assignment; the choice of how many of these there are, their level of opacity and the interfaces covered is a design/viewpoint question

        - there can be (and need to be for the "global" picture) abstract bpel definitions for processes that are never going to be in bpel - not least because some are "leaf" processes in the web-service world, and do real work on databases or visible effect on GUIs etc. rather than just defer to yet another web-service, which is all executable bpel can do

        - there can be multiple executable processes matching a single abstract definition - this is just an interface:implementation relationship

(Apologies to Tony if I've mis-represented him). They obviously have some exciting implications for what bpel tools in general might do (especially the middle one - how on earth do you show compatibility between abstract bpel and a legacy app written in cobol with a web-service front end)

But these don't seem to be in the spec. (last one might be). Should it be left to interpretation (and, no doubt, some books) ? 

There's also the possibility of stating the rules (guidelines ? constraints ?) involved in the two abstract bpel definitions that make up either side of a business protocol.

 

(I should possibly mention that I was for a long time very sceptical about whether bpel or things like it was the way to do this, and thought it could be done with a simpler, less procedural approach. but gradually I found my vague "ideal" was getting necessarily more complex and needing more functionality - in fact heading towards somehting much like on abstract bpel)

       
Peter (speaking for himself)

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Yaron Goland [mailto:ygoland@bea.com]
> Sent: 22 October 2003 23:09
> To: 'John Evdemon'; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: RE: [wsbpel] FAQ
>
>
> Some comments
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: John Evdemon [mailto:jevdemon@microsoft.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 12:44 PM
> > To: wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
> > Subject: [wsbpel] FAQ
> >
> >
> >  <<WSBPEL DRAFT FAQ.txt>> Hello all,
> >
> >  A while ago I asked for feedback on a TC FAQ.  I have attached a
> > draft that incorporates some initial feedback from Monica and Ugo.
> > Please respond with any additional questions or concerns.
> >
> > If there is no feedback by 10/28 I will assume the TC is happy with
> > the current version (attached) and submit it to OASIS.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > John
> >
> >
>

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