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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1–2Cite as

Business Process Execution Language

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Synonyms

BPEL; BPEL4WS

Definition

The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL) has emerged as a standard for specifying and executing processes. It is supported by many vendors and positioned as the “process language of the Internet.” BPEL is XML based and aims to enable “programming in the large,” i.e., using BPEL new services can be composed from other services.

Key Points

BPEL [2, 3] supports the modeling of two types of processes: executable and abstract processes. An abstract, (not executable) process is a business protocol, specifying the message exchange behavior between different parties without revealing the internal behavior for any one of them. This abstract process views the outside world from the perspective of a single organization or (composite) service. An executable processviews the world in a similar manner. However, things are specified in more detail such that the process becomes executable, i.e., an executable BPEL process specifies the...

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Recommended Reading

  1. van der Aalst WMP, Dumas M, ter Hofstede AHM, Russell N, Verbeek HMW, Wohed P. Life after BPEL? In: WS-FM, 2005. p. 35–50.

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  2. Alves A, Arkin A, Askary S, Barreto C, Bloch B, Curbera F, Ford M, Goland Y, Guzar A, Kartha N, Liu CK, Khalaf R, Koenig D, Marin M, Mehta V, Thatte S, Rijn D, Yendluri P, Yiu A. Web services business process execution language, version 2.0 (OASIS Standard). WS-BPEL TC OASIS. 2007. http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsbpel/2.0/wsbpel-v2.0.html.

  3. Andrews T, Curbera F, Dholakia H, Goland Y, Klein J, Leymann F, Liu K, Roller D, Smith D, Thatte S, Trickovic I, Weerawarana S. Business process execution language for web services, version 1.1. Standards Proposal by BEA Systems, International Business Machines Corporation, and Microsoft Corporation; 2003.

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  4. Kloppmann M, Koenig D, Leymann F, Pfau G, Rickayzen A, von Riegen C, Schmidt P, Trickovic I. WS-BPEL extension for people BPEL4People. In: Proceedings of 22nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling; 2005.

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  5. Wohed P, van der Aalst WMP, Dumas M, ter Hofstede AHM. Analysis of web services composition languages: the case of BPEL4WS. In: Song IY, Liddle SW, Ling TW, Scheuermann P, editors. Proceedings of 22nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling; 2003. p. 200–15.

    Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    W. M. P. van der Aalst

Authors
  1. W. M. P. van der Aalst
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to W. M. P. van der Aalst .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 10 King’s College Road, M5S 3G4, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Hans-Arno Jacobsen

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van der Aalst, W.M.P. (2017). Business Process Execution Language. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1194-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1194-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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