Towards Using UML 2 for Modelling Web Service Collaboration Protocols

Abstract

In a web environment, graphical specifications of service collaborations which focus on the protocols of collaborating services are especially important, in order to attain the desired properties of interoperability and loose coupling. Different to modelling of generic software component collaborations, additional requirements must be considered, including security and transaction aspects, and the characteristics of specific target technologies such as ebXML and BPEL. This paper describes a UML-based approach for platform independent modelling web service collaboration protocols, which takes into account the specific requirements, and supports mappings to relevant target technologies.