Extensible process support environments for Web services orchestration

Abstract

Processes can be used to integrate, coordinate and interact with many actors and software in many application domains; their range of needs and objectives is virtually unlimited. A system fitting all needs would be huge and complex, too hard to use and evolve, but on the other extreme, developing many specialized process environments for each need would lead to a situation where many independent and incompatible process islands prohibit a consistent and global process management of a company. This paper proposes an approach where a process environment can be tailored to specific needs, most notably for Web service orchestration. We illustrate the approach by an example and justify it by the validations we have made.