36,876 research outputs found
LTS Semantics for Compensation-based Processes
Business processes design is an error-prone task often relying on long-running transactions with compensations. Unambiguous formal semantics and flexible verification tools should be used for early validation of processes. To this aim, we define a small-step semantics for the Sagas calculus according to the so-called coordinated interruption policy. We show that it can be tuned via small changes to deal with other compensation policies and discuss possible enhancements
cJoin: join with communicating transactions
This paper proposes a formal approach to the design and programming of Long Running Transactions (LRT). We exploit techniques from process calculi to define cJoin, which is an extension of the join calculus with few well-disciplined primitives for LRT. Transactions in cJoin are intended to describe the transactional interaction of several partners, under the assumption that any partner executing a transaction may communicate only with other transactional partners. In such case, the transactions run by any party are bound to achieve the same outcome (i.e., all succeed or all fail). Hence, a distinguishing feature of cJoin, called dynamic joinability, is that ongoing transactions can be merged to complete their tasks and when this happens either all succeed or all abort. Additionally, cJoin is based on compensations, i.e., partial executions of transactions are recovered by executing user-defined programs instead of providing automatic roll-back. The expressiveness and generality of cJoin is demonstrated by many examples addressing common programming patterns. The mathematical foundation is accompanied by a prototype language implementation, which is an extension of the jocaml compiler
On the analysis of compensation correctness
One fundamental idea of service-oriented computing is that applications should be developed by composing already available services. Due to the long running nature of service interactions, a main challenge in service composition is ensuring correctness of transaction recovery. In this paper, we use a process calculus suitable for modelling long running transactions with a recovery mechanism based on compensations. Within this setting, we discuss and formally state correctness criteria for compensable processes compositions, assuming that each process is correct with respect to transaction recovery. Under our theory, we formally interpret self-healing compositions, that can detect and recover from faults, as correct compositions of compensable processes. Moreover, we develop an automated verification approach and we apply it to an illustrative case study
Issues about the Adoption of Formal Methods for Dependable Composition of Web Services
Web Services provide interoperable mechanisms for describing, locating and
invoking services over the Internet; composition further enables to build
complex services out of simpler ones for complex B2B applications. While
current studies on these topics are mostly focused - from the technical
viewpoint - on standards and protocols, this paper investigates the adoption of
formal methods, especially for composition. We logically classify and analyze
three different (but interconnected) kinds of important issues towards this
goal, namely foundations, verification and extensions. The aim of this work is
to individuate the proper questions on the adoption of formal methods for
dependable composition of Web Services, not necessarily to find the optimal
answers. Nevertheless, we still try to propose some tentative answers based on
our proposal for a composition calculus, which we hope can animate a proper
discussion
Towards Efficient Abstractions for Concurrent Consensus
Consensus is an often occurring problem in concurrent and distributed
programming. We present a programming language with simple semantics and
build-in support for consensus in the form of communicating transactions. We
motivate the need for such a construct with a characteristic example of
generalized consensus which can be naturally encoded in our language. We then
focus on the challenges in achieving an implementation that can efficiently run
such programs. We setup an architecture to evaluate different implementation
alternatives and use it to experimentally evaluate runtime heuristics. This is
the basis for a research project on realistic programming language support for
consensus.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, symposium: TFP 201
A Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services
Service-oriented computing, an emerging paradigm for distributed computing based on the use of services, is calling for the development of tools and techniques to build safe and trustworthy systems, and to analyse their behaviour. Therefore, many researchers have proposed to use process calculi, a cornerstone of current foundational research on specification and analysis of concurrent, reactive, and distributed systems. In this paper, we follow this approach and introduce CWS, a process calculus expressly designed for specifying and combining service-oriented applications, while modelling their dynamic behaviour. We show that CWS can model all the phases of the life cycle of service-oriented applications, such as publication, discovery, negotiation, orchestration, deployment, reconfiguration and execution. We illustrate the specification style that CWS supports by means of a large case study from the automotive domain and a number of more specific examples drawn from it
A Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services
We introduce COWS (Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services), a new foundational language for SOC whose design has been influenced by WS-BPEL, the de facto standard language for orchestration of web services. COWS combines in an original way a number of ingredients borrowed from well-known process calculi, e.g. asynchronous communication, polyadic synchronization, pattern matching, protection, delimited receiving and killing activities, while resulting different from any of them. Several examples illustrates COWS peculiarities and show its expressiveness both for modelling imperative and orchestration constructs, e.g. web services, flow graphs, fault and compensation handlers, and for encoding other process and orchestration languages
Primitives for Contract-based Synchronization
We investigate how contracts can be used to regulate the interaction between
processes. To do that, we study a variant of the concurrent constraints
calculus presented in [1], featuring primitives for multi-party synchronization
via contracts. We proceed in two directions. First, we exploit our primitives
to model some contract-based interactions. Then, we discuss how several models
for concurrency can be expressed through our primitives. In particular, we
encode the pi-calculus and graph rewriting.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2010, arXiv:1010.530
COWS: A Timed Service-Oriented Calculus
COWS (Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services) is a foundational language for Service Oriented Computing that combines in an original way a number of ingredients borrowed from well-known process calculi, e.g. asynchronous communication, polyadic synchronization, pattern matching, protection, delimited receiving and killing activities, while resulting different from any of them. In this paper, we extend COWS with timed orchestration constructs, this way we obtain a language capable of completely formalizing the semantics of WS-BPEL, the ‘de facto’ standard language for orchestration of web services. We present the semantics of the extended language and illustrate its peculiarities and expressiveness by means of several examples
Using formal methods to develop WS-BPEL applications
In recent years, WS-BPEL has become a de facto standard language for orchestration of Web Services. However, there are still some well-known difficulties that make programming
in WS-BPEL a tricky task. In this paper, we firstly point out major loose points of the WS-BPEL specification by means of many examples, some of which are also exploited
to test and compare the behaviour of three of the most known freely available WS-BPEL engines. We show that, as a matter of fact, these engines implement different
semantics, which undermines portability of WS-BPEL programs over different platforms. Then we introduce Blite, a prototypical orchestration language equipped with a formal
operational semantics, which is closely inspired by, but simpler than, WS-BPEL. Indeed, Blite is designed around some of WS-BPEL distinctive features like partner links, process termination, message correlation, long-running business transactions and compensation handlers. Finally, we present BliteC, a software tool supporting a rapid and easy development of WS-BPEL applications via translation of service orchestrations written in Blite into executable WS-BPEL programs. We illustrate our approach by means of a running example borrowed from the official specification of WS-BPEL
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