Describing and Reasoning on Web Services using Process Algebra

  • Authors:
  • Gwen Salaün;Lucas Bordeaux;Marco Schaerf

  • Affiliations:
  • DIS - Università di Roma La Sapienza", Italy;DIS - Università di Roma La Sapienza", Italy;DIS - Università di Roma La Sapienza", Italy

  • Venue:
  • ICWS '04 Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Web Services
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

We argue that essential facets of web services,and especially those useful to understand their interaction,can be described using process-algebraic notations. Web servicedescription and execution languages such as BPEL are essentiallyprocess description languages; they are based on primitives forbehaviour description and message exchange which can also befound in more abstract process algebras. One legitimate questionis therefore whether the formal approach and the sophisticatedtools introduced for process algebra can be used to improve theeffectiveness and the reliability of web service development. Ourinvestigations suggest a positive answer, and we claim that processalgebras provide a very complete and satisfactory assistanceto the whole process of web service development. We showon a case study that readily available tools based on processalgebra are effective at verifying that web services conformtheir requirements and respect properties. We advocate theiruse both at the design stage and for reverse engineering issues.More prospectively, we discuss how they can be helpful to tacklechoreography issues.