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Tuesday 22nd April 2003
OASIS WS Business Process Execution Language TC Formed
| CBDI COMMENTARY
Following the formation of the WS-Choreography Working Group by W3C earlier this year we have waited with interest to see how the companies behind the BPEL4WS specification would eventually respond. Their eventually decision to form a new standards group at OASIS will be seen by many as a snub to the W3C initiative, though interestingly there is significant overlap in the membership of the two initiatives.
The decision to form WSBPEL reflects the approach that IBM and Microsoft have taken so far in moving the various specifications they have proposed along with others into a standards process. Namely, one of refining and completing their already well-defined specification, rather than making a contribution (along with alternative proposals) to a broader process which might ultimately yield something quite different to their original specification, or at least be harder work in terms of reaching consensus. Though some of their competitors might claim that IBM and Microsoft are not being ‘open’ enough by adopting this stance, it is in reality a fairly common approach to standards setting. i.e. take a well defined specification with the backing of industry leaders and endorse that, as opposed to the typically slower process of design by committee.
It also reflects the different way that W3C and OASIS work. Whereas W3C seem to take a more ‘architected’ approach, trying to ensure that each specification has its proper place, OASIS appears to have a looser philosophy – if enough members want a committee, then they shall have one, regardless of whether there is overlap with other initiatives. It is up to the membership to sort such issues out, not the OASIS board. As such, it is easier for IBM and Microsoft to take their existing specifications (previous example is WS-Security) forward. It will therefore now be interesting to see how IBM and Microsoft respond to the recent formation by IONA, Oracle, Sun, and others of the OASIS WS Reliable Messaging TC. With a well-defined alternative of their own, will IBM and Microsoft form an alternative TC at OASIS? Or go to W3C instead?
The decision by existing W3C WS-Choreography Working Group members (notably SAP, Novell, Tibco) to now join the OASIS initiative will leave the W3C initiative in a difficult position. Does it focus on developing WSCI? Even though the broader industry backing is shifting to BPEL, which does everything WSCI does and more? It shouldn’t be forgotten either that ebXML, another OASIS initiative, whilst it uses SOAP messaging has its own business process specification. Interestingly, WSBPEL does recognise in its charter that existing initiatives such as WSCI and the work of the WS-Choreography Working Group, ebXML, and BPMI BPML "may be relevant". Though I doubt BPEL will change that much now.
Organizations, certainly the larger ones, may find themselves in a situation where in the near term at least they will need to support more than one business processing language/interface to reflect the needs of different partners, as well as continuing to support existing EDI and B2B interfaces. A good SOA strategy will be essential in such situations to abstract services away from the multiple interface technologies in use.
Perhaps there is room for two (or more) competing ‘standards’, and let the market eventually decide which one wins. This does run the risk that customers will slow their adoption as they wait the outcome of the eventually winner. However, with the strength of the specification, and the weight of the industry behind it, WSBPEL must be judged as already the odds on favorite.
Lawrence Wilkes
LINKS
W3C Forms Web Services Choreography Working Group – CBDI News Analysis
BEA, INTALIO, SAP, SUN Publish Web Services Choreography Interface – CBDI News Analysis
Web Services Business Process Execution Language OASIS Technical Committee
W3C WS Choreography Working Group | NEWS WITHOUT THE HYPE
The OASIS Web Services Business Process Execution Language Technical Committee (WSBPEL TC) has been formed to continue work on the business process language first published in the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) specification by BEA, IBM, and Microsoft.
Joining them in the proposal are Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, Collaxa, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, EDS , E2open, FiveSight Technologies, Inc., NEC, Novell, Reuters, SAP, Siebel, SeeBeyond, Sybase, Teamplate Technology, Tibco Software, Unisys, Vignette, Vitria Technology, and WebV2.
Continuing the approach and design used in BPEL4WS, the work of the BPEL TC will focus on specifying the common concepts for a business process execution language which form the necessary technical foundation for multiple usage patterns including both the process interface descriptions required for business protocols and executable process models. It is explicitly not a goal of the TC to specify bindings to specific hardware/software platforms and other mechanisms required for a complete runtime environment for process implementation.
The TC has the following deliverables:
• The specification of the core elements and functionalities of BPEL4WS.
• An extension specification for business protocol description
• An extension specification for executable process description
• The two extension specifications for the usage patterns of business protocol description and executable process description are normative, mandatory extensions to the core specification and will include only the essential feature extensions required for the given usage pattern.
The scope of the Web Services Business Process Execution Language Technical Committee is the support of process mechanisms in the following areas:
• Sequencing of process activities, especially Web service interactions
• Correlation of messages and process instances
• Recovery behavior in case of failures and exceptional conditions
• Bilateral Web service based relationships between process roles
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