Optimization of WS-BPEL Workflows through Business Process Re-Engineering Patterns

Abstract

With the advent of XML-based SOA, WS-BPEL swiftly became a widely accepted standard for modeling business processes. Although SOA is said to embrace the principle of business agility, BPEL process definitions are still manually crafted into their final executable version. While SOA has proven to be a giant leap forward in building flexible IT systems, this static BPEL workflow model should be enhanced to better sustain continual process evolution. In this paper, the authors discuss the potential for adding business intelligence with respect to business process re-engineering patterns to the system to allow for automatic business process optimization. Furthermore, the paper examines how these re-engineering patterns may be implemented, leveraging techniques that were applied successfully in computer science. Several practical examples illustrate the benefit of such adaptive process models. These preliminary findings indicate that techniques like the re-sequencing and parallelization of instructions, further optimized by introspection, as well as techniques for achieving software fault tolerance, are particularly valuable for optimizing business processes. Finally, the authors elaborate on the design of people-oriented business processes using common human-centric re-engineering patterns.