WS-BPEL FAQ

 

  1. Is there any standard way to migrate BPEL 1.1 process to WS-BPEL 2.0?
    1. The OASIS WS-BPEL TC has no official guidance on this topic.  

 

  1. Is WS_BPEL targeted for WS programming? Are managers expected to learn programming languages like C# or Java to model business process using WS-BPEL? 
    1. BPEL orchestrates services that are exposed using WSDL 1.1.  These services can be created using any language (including BPEL), but the fact that they are exposed via WSDL 1.1 means that BPEL need not know anything about their implementation

 

  1. What is the difference between Orchestration and Choreography?
    1. An orchestration is from one actor's point of view, where choreography looks at a global system and all the actors, and their interactions, without looking at any single actor's internals.   Unlike an orchestration, there is no conductor in choreography – it is a peer to peer set of relationships.   WS-BPEL 2.0 is an orchestration language.   Examples of choreography languages include BPSS and WS-CDL.

 

  1. What is the relationship between BPMN and WS-BPEL2.0?
    1. WS-BPEL is an OASIS standard for a service orchestration language.  BPMN is an OMG standard for visual representation of a business process. While a BPEL process can be represented using BPMN, some BPMN models cannot be represented using BPEL.  At the time this FAQ was prepared there were no mappings from BPMN to WS-BPEL 2.0.

 

  1. How does WS-BPEL handle human tasks?
    1. BPEL was not designed for human workflow.

 

  1. What are the requirements, if any, for webservices participating in a BPEL process? Would WS-BPEL work with RESTful Webservices?
    1. Any web service with a WSDL 1.1 contract can be used by or within by a BPEL process  WS-BPEL 2.0 is not designed to use RESTful services because these types of services do not use WSDL.  Services to be used by BPEL must be described using a WSDL contract. 

 

  1. What would be an impact if WSDL2.0 Web services need to participate in WS-BPEL process?
    1. WS-BPEL 2.0 is not intended for use with WSDL 2.0.  .  

 

  1. What are the best practices to map WS-BPEL’s request/response paradigm to asynchronous request response web services?
    1. WS-BPEL 2.0 is specifically designed to orchestrate long-running web service conversations.  There are a number of BPEL modeling techniques that can be used depending on the style of the service definitions (a non-normative example is available here).  WS-BPEL 2.0 supports WSDL 1.1 one-way and request-response operations but does not support solicit-response or notification operations (see Section 3 of the WS-BPEL 2.0 specification for additional clarification).   

 

  1. Can fault handlers and compensation handlers apply at a more detailed level than a scope?
    1. Yes you can specify fault handlers and compensation handlers for each <invoke> activity

 

  1. Where does WS-Addressing fit into correlation scenario?
    1. WS-BPEL 2.0 does not specify the use of WS-Addressing.  WS-BPEL uses an endpoint reference, manifested as a service reference container <sref:service-ref>, to represent the data required to describe a partner service endpoint.  A partner service endpoint may be manifested using WS-Addressing. 

 

  1.  Does WS-BPEL2.0 support Xpath 2.0 and/or XSLT 2.0?
    1. No. WS-BPEL2.0 is based upon Xpath 1.0 and XSLT 1.0

   

  1. What is a relationship of WS-BPEL to BPEL4J, BPEL for People, BPEL for Sub-Processes and SCA?
    1. None of these initiatives are affiliated with the WS-BPEL TC or the WS-BPEL 2.0 specification.    The OASIS WS-BPEL TC has no official guidance any of these initiatives.