Exception Resolution for BPEL Processes: a Middleware-based Framework and Performance Evaluation

Christos Kareliotis, Costas Vassilakis, Efstathios Rouvas and Panayiotis Georgiadis
Proceedings of the tenth International Conference on Information Integration and Web-based Applications & Services (iiWAS2008)

Abstract:
WS-BPEL has become the predominant technology for specifying and executing composite business processes within the Service Oriented Architecture. During the execution however of such a composite business process, a number of faults stemming from the distributed nature of the SOA architecture (e.g. network or server failures) may occur. To this end, the WS-BPEL scenario designer must exploit the provisions offered by WS-BPEL to catch exceptions owing to system failures and resolve them, typically by invoking some alternate equivalent web service that is expected to be reachable and available. The task of system fault handler specification is though an additional burden for the WS-BPEL scenario designer and the presence of such handlers within the WS-BPEL scenario necessitates additional maintenance activities, as new alternate services become available or some of the specified ones are withdrawn. In this paper, we propose a middleware-based framework for system exception resolution, which undertakes the tasks of failure interception, discovery of alternate services and their invocation. The middleware is deployed and maintained independently of the WS-BPEL scenarios, removing thus the need for specifying and maintaining system faults within the scenarios. We also present performance measures, establishing that the overhead imposed by the addition of the proposed middleware layer is minimal.

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