PACKT 9781847192165 PDF

Web services orchestration with BPEL: guide for architects and developers

Key Features

• AT A GLANCE ON THE TOPICS ADDRESSED

• Service-oriented architecture and the role of BPEL

• Process development and composition of web services

• BPEL syntax, treated exhaustively by examples

• Advanced features such as compensation, competition, links, scopes,

events, dynamic links and correlations

• Relations between BPEL and other standards

• Web services technology

• Oracle BPEL Process Manager and Designer BPEL

• Microsoft BizTalk Server as BPEL server

Book Description

Web services are the basic technical platform required for application interoperability. They do not however allow to control the order and the way in which the operations which they expose are invoked. They also do not provide a way to describe the semantics of interfaces, workflows, or electronic business processes. BPEL is the missing link that allows you to assemble and integrate web services into real processes.

BPEL standardizes the automation of processes between web services, whether they are deployed within the company in order to integrate previously isolated systems, or between companies to facilitate integration between business partners.

By providing a standard description structure, BPEL allows companies to define their processes during the design phase. This generates even wider benefits by optimizing these processes, rearranging them and selecting the most appropriate.

Supported by major software vendors - BEA, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun and others - BPEL is becoming the standard for business process management (BPM) Management).

This book comprehensively covers language, syntax and usage. It begins by giving an overview of web services, their foundations and justifies the need for a language such as BPEL. The technological layer of web services is described, including standards such as WS-Security, WS-Coordination, WS-Transaction, WS-Addressing and others. The BPEL language itself is described in detail, and code snippets and full examples illustrate both its syntax and typical process constructs. After dealing with the language, the book discusses how to implement it by giving an overview of the main BPEL servers. Two of them, Oracle BPEL Process Manager and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 are covered in detail, and full examples of implementation using these servers are provided.

What you will learn

Chapter 1 introduces BPEL and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) in detail. It presents business processes and their automation, explains the role of BPEL, web services and ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) in an SOA, gives an overview of the process composition with BPEL, compares it to other solutions, presents the main BPEL servers and discusses the future of this language.

 Chapter 2 introduces in detail the technological layer of web services. It deals with major standards and specifications for the use of BPEL and the implementation of architectures based on web services, such as WS-Security, WS-Addressing, WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, WS-BusinessActivity, WS- Reliable Messaging, etc.

 Chapter 3 deals with the composition of web services with BPEL. It introduces the basic concepts and explains how to define synchronous or asynchronous BPEL processes. It familiarizes the reader with the structure of these processes, links to partners, parallel and sequential invocation of services, variables, conditions, etc.

 Chapter 4 delves deeper into the language by dealing with advanced functionalities for modeling complex processes. Advanced activities, scopes, serialization, fault management, compensations, event management, correlation sets, concurrent activities and links, process life cycle and dynamic links to partners are treated in detail.

 Chapter 5 describes how to use Oracle BPEL Process Manager to deploy and execute processes defined in BPEL. It describes the architecture of the server, the tools and functionalities as well as the best practices for managing and debugging processes. It also covers graphical process design using the Designer BPEL for JDeveloper and Eclipse.

 Chapter 6 provides a detailed view of the advanced features of Oracle BPEL Process Manager, such as extended functions, dynamic parallel flows, Web Services Invocation Framework, Java encapsulation, notification, Workflow and identity services and Oracle BPEL server APIs.

Chapter 7 discusses MS BizTalk Server 2004 and the BPEL support it provides. It explains how to develop business processes in BizTalk and export them to BPEL. It also explains how to import them into BizTalk and how to use the Orchestration Designer tool to graphically define new ones. It also compares the BizTalk and BPEL constructions.

Annex A gives the syntax references for BPEL version 1.1. It covers standard BPEL activities, elements, functions, attributes and faults.

Authors: Benny Mathew, Dalil Djidel [Translator], Matjaz B. Juric, Poornachandra Sarang