A BPEL workflow engine based on long lived transactions and WS-business activity

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the design and implementation of a framework to orchestrate distributed long lived transactions. Long-lived transactions are transactions which maintain partially the ACID properties but which typically span over an extended period of time. There exist different transaction models which provide various levels of abstraction on transactions. This project proposes a coordination language to coordinate transactions and sub transactions. The proposed framework leverages the similarities between business processes and transactions. ln fact we propose a coordination model based on BPEL which is adapted to orchestrate WS-Transaction transactions in combination with a custom CSP-based LLT coordination model. New constructs such as IF, WHILE, FOR EACH and REPEAT UNTIL are used in combination with constructs such as PAR and SEQ to define and demarcate transactions. The open source platform, JBoss XTS has been used as an implementation of the WS Transaction and WS-Coordination protocol