A Formal Framework For Multi-Party Business Protocols (Revision of CentER DP 2008-79)

Enterprise-class information systems based on the principles of Service Oriented Architecture comprise large numbers of long-running, highly dynamic complex end-to-end service interactions, called conversations, based on message exchanges that typically transcend several organizations and span several geographical locations. Conversations in service-based systems can be described using business protocols that are formal notations specifying the timed message exchanges among participants in a conversation from a local point of view (orchestrations) or global (choreographies). In this work we introduce a formal framework based on Deterministic Finite Automata enriched with temporal constraints to describe multi-party business protocols. We also explore the notion of multi-party business protocol soundness and show how it is possible to execute a multi-party protocol consistently in a completely distributed manner and at the same time ensure the progression of the execution (i.e. no “deadlocks”).service oriented architecture;message exchange patterns business protocols;orchestrations;choreographies;soundness

Distributed Enforcement of Service Choreographies

Modern service-oriented systems are often built by reusing, and composing together, existing services distributed over the Internet. Service choreography is a possible form of service composition whose goal is to specify the interactions among participant services from a global perspective. In this paper, we formalize a method for the distributed and automated enforcement of service choreographies, and prove its correctness with respect to the realization of the specified choreography. The formalized method is implemented as part of a model-based tool chain released to support the development of choreography-based systems within the EU CHOReOS project. We illustrate our method at work on a distributed social proximity network scenario.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2014, arXiv:1502.0315

Correctness of services and their composition

We study correctness of services and their composition and investigate how the design of correct service compositions can be systematically supported. We thereby focus on the communication protocol of the service and approach these questions using formal methods and make contributions to three scenarios of SOC.Wir studieren die Korrektheit von Services und Servicekompositionen und untersuchen, wie der Entwurf von korrekten Servicekompositionen systematisch unterstützt werden kann. Wir legen dabei den Fokus auf das Kommunikationsprotokoll der Services. Mithilfe von formalen Methoden tragen wir zu drei Szenarien von SOC bei

Correctness of services and their composition

We study correctness of services and their composition and investigate how the design of correct service compositions can be systematically supported. We thereby focus on the communication protocol of the service and approach these questions using formal methods and make contributions to three scenarios of SOC.Wir studieren die Korrektheit von Services und Servicekompositionen und untersuchen, wie der Entwurf von korrekten Servicekompositionen systematisch unterstützt werden kann. Wir legen dabei den Fokus auf das Kommunikationsprotokoll der Services. Mithilfe von formalen Methoden tragen wir zu drei Szenarien von SOC bei

Modeling and verification of web service composition based interorganizational workflows

Interorganisationale Workflows sind Arbeitsabläufe, welche die Grenzen einer Organisation verlassen und einen Rahmen für Kooperationen der verschiedenen autonomen Organisationen zur Verfügung stellen. Ein wichtiger Punkt für den Entwurf solcher Workflows ist die Balance zwischen Offenheit und Abgrenzung, wobei erstere für Kooperationen und letztere die für den Schutz von Know-how benötigt wird. Workflow Sichten stellen ein effizientes Werkzeug für diesen Zweck zur Verfügung. Durch Offenlegung von bestimmten Teilen eines Prozesses, können Organisationen sowohl kooperieren als auch das Know-how schützen. Diese Dissertation präsentiert nun eine Methode für die korrekte Konstruktion von Workflow Sichten. Es wird angenommen, dass Organisationen Web Service orientierte Technologien zur Modellierung und Implementierung von interorganisationalen Workflows verwenden. Die Anwendung von Web Services bietet Organisationen viele Vorteile. Den eigentlichen Mehrwert von Web Services stellt aber die Kompositionsfähigkeit dar. Verfügbare Web Services können dadurch von anderen Choreographien und Orchestrationen (wieder-)verwendet werden. Die Notwendigkeit der Implementierung von Systemen von Null weg kann minimiert werden. Die zentralen Anforderungen sind einerseits eine Architektur mit adäquatem Potential, andererseits die Verifikation der Korrektheit. Diese Dissertation präsentiert nun eine Architektur zur Modellierung von Web Service Composition basierten interorganisationalen Workflows, genannt föderierte Choreographien, die verglichen mit anderen Architekturen verschiedene Vorteile anbieten. Darüber hinaus werden Algorithmen und Techniken zur Verifikation der strukturellen und temporalen Korrektheit vorgestellt. Strukturelle Korrektheit prüft, ob die Strukturen der beteiligten Prozesse zusammenpassen. Temporale Korrektheit überprüft, ob ein interorganisationaler Workflow, der aus mehreren Choreographien und Orchestrationen besteht hinsichtlich der lokalen und globalen Bedingungen fehlerfrei ist. Mit Hilfe dieser Techniken kann die strukturelle und temporale Konformität des Modells zur Designzeit überprüft werden. Falls das Modell nicht strukturell oder temporal konform ist, können nötige Änderungen durchgeführt werden, sodass die korrekte Ausführung zur Laufzeit garantiert werden kann. Die Überprüfung der Konformität zur Designzeit reduziert die Prozesskosten vor allem wegen den folgenden zwei Gründen: Erstens, die entdeckten Fehler zur Designzeit sind normalerweise billiger als jene, die zur Laufzeit entdeckt werden und zweitens, Fehlerbehandlungsmechanismen können verhindert werden, die wiederum Zusatzkosten verursachen. Zusätzlich zu der vorgestellten Architektur wird eine allgemeinere Architektur zusammen mit den passenden Konformitätsprüfungsalgorithmen präsentiert. Der Ansatz ist Platform- und sprachunabhängig und die Algorithmen sind verteilt.Interorganizational workflows are workflows that cross the boundaries of a single organization and provide a framework for cooperation of different autonomous organizations. An important issue when designing such workflows is the balance between the openness needed for cooperation and the privacy needed for protection of business know-how. Workflow views provide an efficient tool for this aim. By exposure of only selected parts of a process, organizations can both cooperate and protect their business logic. This dissertation presents a technique for a correct construction of workflow views. It is assumed that organizations and partners use web services and web service related technology to model and implement interorganizational workflows. Application of web services offers several advantages for organizations. The real surplus of web services is their capability of being composed to more complex systems. Available web services can be reused by other choreographies and orchestrations and the need for development of new systems from scratch can be minimized. The essential requirements are on the one hand an architecture with adequate capabilities and on the other hand, verification of correctness. This dissertation proposes an architecture for modeling web service composition based interorganizational workflows, called \emph{federated choreographies}, that provides several advantages compared to existing proposals. Moreover, algorithms and techniques for verification of structural and temporal correctness of interorganizational workflows are proposed. Structural conformance checks if the structures of the involved processes match. Temporal conformance checks if an interorganizational workflow composed of choreographies and orchestrations is temporally error-free with respect to local and global temporal constraints. The proposed algorithms can be applied for checking the structural and temporal conformance of the federated choreographies at design-time. If the model is not structurally or temporally conformant, necessary modifications can be done such that the correct execution of the flow at run-time can be guaranteed. The conformance checking at design time reduces the cost of process because of two reasons: first, errors detected at design time are normally cheaper than those detected at run time and second, exception handling mechanisms can be avoided which are, in turn, coupled with additional costs. In addition to the proposed architecture, a more general architecture together with the conformance checking algorithms and techniques for interorganizational workflows are presented. The presented approach is language and platform independent and algorithms work in a distributed manner

Sound Multi-Party Business Protocols for Service Networks

Service networks comprise large numbers of long-running, highly dynamic complex end-to-end service interactions reflecting asynchronous message flows that typically transcend several organizations and span several geographical locations. At the communication level, service network business protocols can be flexible ranging from conventional inter-organizational point-to-point service interactions to fully blown dynamic multi-party interactions of global reach within which each participant may contribute its activities and services. In this paper we introduce a formal framework enriched with temporal constraints to describe multiparty business protocols for service networks. We extend this framework with the notion of multi-party business protocol soundness and show how it is possible to execute a multi-party protocol consistently in a completely distributed manner while guaranteeing eventual termination

AIOCJ: A Choreographic Framework for Safe Adaptive Distributed Applications

We present AIOCJ, a framework for programming distributed adaptive applications. Applications are programmed using AIOC, a choreographic language suited for expressing patterns of interaction from a global point of view. AIOC allows the programmer to specify which parts of the application can be adapted. Adaptation takes place at runtime by means of rules, which can change during the execution to tackle possibly unforeseen adaptation needs. AIOCJ relies on a solid theory that ensures applications to be deadlock-free by construction also after adaptation. We describe the architecture of AIOCJ, the design of the AIOC language, and an empirical validation of the framework.Comment: Technical Repor

Evolution of Process Choreographies in DYCHOR

Process-aware information systems have to be frequently adapted due to business process changes. One important challenge not adequately addressed so far concerns the evolution of process choreographies, i.e., the change of interactions between partner processes in a cross-organizational setting. If respective modifications are applied in an uncontrolled manner, inconsistencies or errors might occur in the sequel. In particular, modifications of private processes performed by a single party may affect the implementation of the private processes of partners as well. In this paper we present the DYCHOR (DYnamic CHOReographies) framework which allows process engineers to detect how changes of private processes may affect related public views and - if so - how they can be propagated to the public and private processes of partners. In particular, DYCHOR exploits the semantics of the applied changes in order to automatically determine the adaptations necessary for the partner processes. Altogether our framework provides an important contribution towards the realization of adaptive, cross-organizational processes

Behavioral types in programming languages

A recent trend in programming language research is to use behav- ioral type theory to ensure various correctness properties of large- scale, communication-intensive systems. Behavioral types encompass concepts such as interfaces, communication protocols, contracts, and choreography. The successful application of behavioral types requires a solid understanding of several practical aspects, from their represen- tation in a concrete programming language, to their integration with other programming constructs such as methods and functions, to de- sign and monitoring methodologies that take behaviors into account. This survey provides an overview of the state of the art of these aspects, which we summarize as the pragmatics of behavioral types