Product Description
An Architects and Developers Guide to BPEL and BPEL4WS
- Architecture, syntax, development and composition of Business Processes and Services using BPEL
- Advanced BPEL features such as compensation, concurrency, links, scopes, events, dynamic partner links, and correlations
- Oracle BPEL Process Manager and BPEL Designer Microsoft BizTalk Server as a BPEL server
In Detail
Web services provide the basic technical platform required for application interoperability. They do not, however, provide higher level control, such as which web services need to be invoked, which operations should be called and in what sequence. Nor do they provide ways to describe the semantics of interfaces, the workflows, or e-business processes. BPEL is the missing link to assemble and integrate web services into a real business process BPEL4WS standardizes process automation between web services. This applies both within the enterprise, where BPEL4WS is used to integrate previously isolated systems, and between enterprises, where BPEL4WS enables easier and more effective integration with business partners. In providing a standard descriptive structure BPEL4WS enables enterprises to define their business processes during the design phase. Wider business benefits can flow from this through business process optimization, reengineering, and the selection of most appropriate processes . Supported by major vendors — including BEA, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun, and others — BPEL4WS is becoming the accepted standard for business process management.
This book provides detailed coverage of BPEL4WS, its syntax, and where, and how, it is used. It begins with an overview of web services, showing both the foundation of, and need for, BPEL. The web services orchestration stack is explained, including standards such as WS-Security, WS-Coordination, WS-Transaction, WS-Addressing, and others. The BPEL language itself is explained in detail, with Code snippets and complete examples illustrating both its syntax and typical construction. Having covered BPEL itself, the book then goes on to show BPEL is used in context. by providing an overview of major BPEL4WS servers. It covers the Oracle BPEL Process Manager and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 in detail, and shows how to write BPEL4WS solutions using these servers.
What you will learn from this book?
Chapter 1 provides a detailed introduction to BPEL and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). It discusses business processes and their automation, explains the role of BPEL, web services, and Enterprise Service Buses (ESB) in SOA, provides insight into business process composition with BPEL, explains the most important features, compares BPEL to other specifications, provides an overview of BPEL servers, and discusses the future of BPEL.
Chapter 2 provides a detailed introduction to the Web Services Technology Stack. It discusses the important standards and specifications for using BPEL and implementing SOA with web services, such as WS-Security, WS-Addressing, WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, WS-BusinessActivity, WS-Reliable Messaging, etc.
Chapter 3 discusses the composition of web services with BPEL. The chapter introduces the core concepts of BPEL and explains how to define synchronous and asynchronous business processes with BPEL. The reader gets familiar with BPEL process structure, partner links, sequential and parallel service invocation, variables, conditions, etc.
Chapter 4 goes deeper into the BPEL specification and covers advanced features for modeling complex business processes. Advanced activities, scopes, serialization, fault handing, compensations, event handling, correlation sets, concurrent activities and links, process lifecycle, and dynamic partner links are covered in detail.
Chapter 5 explains how to use the Oracle BPEL Process Manager for deploying and executing business processes defined in BPEL. It describes the server architecture, tools, features, and common approaches for managing and debugging BPEL processes. The chapter also looks at graphical development of BPEL processes using Oracle BPEL Designer for JDeveloper and for Eclipse.
Chapter 6 takes a detailed look at the advanced features of the Oracle BPEL Process Manager including extension functions, dynamic parallel flows, Web Services Invocation Framework, Java embedding, Notification service, Workflow service, Identity service, and Oracle BPEL Server APIs.
Chapter 7 discusses MS BizTalk Server 2004 and its support for BPEL. It explains how to develop business processes in BizTalk and export them to BPEL. It also explains how to import BPEL processes into BizTalk and how to use the Orchestration Designer tool to define processes graphically, and compares BizTalk and BPEL constructs.
Appendix A provides a syntax reference for BPEL version 1.1. The appendix covers standard BPEL activities and elements, functions, attributes, and faults.
Who this book is written for?
This book is aimed at architects and developers in the design, implementation, and integration phases of advanced information systems and e-business solutions, developing business processes and dealing with the issues of composition, orchestration, transactions, coordination, and security. The book presumes knowledge of XML and web services, web services development (either on J2EE or .NET), and multi-tier architecture
Business Process Execution Language for Web Services BPEL and BPEL4WS 2nd Edition
There have been an entire bowl of alphabet soup regarding various kinds of distributed processing systems. All of them, in their time, achieved a certain level of usage. None of them has done much to change the basic way we do business communications. That may be changing.
The development of the internet from a little system to exchange technical papers to a worldwide set of sites, all speaking internet protocol, have generated the expansion of broadband services all across the world from New York City to small towns in the third world. The basic ability of an individual to seek information has subsequently been expanded with XML so that information can be exchanged between computers of different types with different operating systems easily and without having to understand the characteristics of the computer at the other end. XML is a very open standard and it has some weaknesses. Enter BPEL to establish a set of standards, some common ways of doing things, and a generally more organized approach.
BPEL servers have been developed by, and there are URLs to: Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, BEA, Sun and at least four open-source implementations.
While this is a beginners book in so far as BPEL is concerned, it is presumed that the reader has some experience with XML, web services, and some kind of web services developent system such as J2EE or .NET.
Rating: 5 / 5
An excellent book for beginners and for those who want to get familiar with advanced BPEL features. First chapter is a little weak but chapters two and three are great. This book is also a must for everybody working with Oracle BPEL Process Manager (chapter four). The examples are great. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book introduces bpel using oracle bpel engine beyond that this book fall short of introducing the bigger picture in terms of soa. the book also needs a revision. this book also suffers too much repetition and poor editing.
Rating: 2 / 5
This is a good book for those seeking an initial view of process and BPEL. The book covers the basics of BPEL profile 1.1, and until chapter 4 is a good resource of information. I don’t like books that binds the technology to an specific implementation, and that’s the case of the book after chapter 4, it binds examples to Oracle BPEL process servers (which I’ve already used in production and find it a poor implementation) and Microsoft Biz Talk (never used it). It would be much better if more real world examples could be provided instead of specific providers mechanisms for deploying, creating etc. This should be a readers choice, and the product manuals take care of that. I’m a great fan of the author, have read many of his books, this one had everything to be on my top shell, but, if only there was no more chapters after the 4th.
Just my 2 cents.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is a response from the Publisher, Packt, in reply to the two reviews below…
The code examples in the book have been written for the Oracle BPEL Process Manager version 2.x, which has been one of the few working BPEL engines at that time (2004, former Collaxa engine). In the mean time, Oracle BPEL Process Manager has been upgraded to version 10.1.2 and code examples required some minor modifications. New code examples have been available from the publisher’s web site (www.packtpub.com). If Oracle BPEL Process manager is installed appropriately, code examples definitely work.
Please notice that the 2nd Edition of the book is about to be published in January 2006. The 2nd Edition has been improved, particularly with the introduction of SOA and BPEL, and coverage of advanced features of Oracle BPEL Process Manager and Microsoft BizTalk.
This answers the complaints in the last two customer reviews, thank you.
Packt Publishing
Rating: 5 / 5