WED-SQL: An Intermediate Declarative Language for PAIS Execution

Abstract

Process-Aware Information Systems (PAIS), which include Business Process Management (BPM) systems and Workflow Management systems, have been evolving to fulfill the requirements of increasingly complex business and scientific applications. In spite of all efforts, traditional approaches still struggle to provide a seamless integration between the structural design and implementation of such systems. Formal approaches (e.g. Process Algebras and Petri Net) are sufficient to specify systems that can be formally verifiable, albeit unwieldy to implement. The widespread BPMN notation is remarkably effective and a easy to use tool for modeling despite setting aside implementation aspects. On the other hand, the WS-BPEL is a language for execution control of business process that lacks support for modeling. Furthermore, none of these approaches are ideal to handle adaptive strategies that result in recurrent application structural changes, which remain an important challenge to be overcome once they are becoming the new standard in modern PAIS development. In this context, the WED-flow approach emerges as a prevailing and more flexible Domain Specific Language (DSL) for modeling and implementation of PAIS. Due to its high level of abstraction, WED-flow models have been shown difficult to implement. In order to fill this gap between modeling and implementation, we present WED-SQL: an intermediate declarative language for execution of WED-flow models in a transaction environment.