Formalizing higher-order mobile embedded business processes with binding bigraphs

Abstract

We propose and formalize HomeBPEL, a higher-order WSBPEL-like business process execution language where processes are first-class values that can be stored in variables, passed as messages, and activated as embedded sub-instances. A sub-instance is similar to a WSBPEL scope, except that it can be dynamically frozen and stored as a process in a variable, and then subsequently be thawed when reactivated as a sub-instance. We motivate HomeBPEL by an example of pervasive health care where treatment guidelines are dynamically deployed as sub processes that may be delegated dynamically to other workflow engines and in particular stay available for disconnected operation on mobile devices. We provide a formal semantics based on binding bigraphical reactive systems implemented in the BPL Tool as part of the Bigraphical Programming Languages project at ITU. The semantics is an extension of a semantics given previously for a simplified subset of WS-BPEL and exploits the close correspondence between bigraphs and XML to provide a formalized run-time format very close to standard WS-BPEL syntax, which also constitutes the representation of frozen sub-instances. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.