Using Token Analysis to Transform Graph-Oriented Process Models to BPEL

Abstract

In Business Process Management, graph-based models facilitate convenient process modelling. Current workflow engines are commonly based on mainly block-structured languages, such as WS-BPEL, that differ structurally and semantically from process graphs. Recent work has accomplished elaborate mappings between both representations. Although most mappings strongly depend on the segmentation of the graph-model into components, the necessary graph-decomposition itself is not described in these works. This article presents an approach based on Token Analysis to automatically identify components. The technique enables simple integration of further improvements steps in the translation of process graphs to executable workflows and yields general results in graph-theory, that might also be of interest in related fields, such as workflow analysis for compilers and multi-threaded processors