Web Services

BPEL & BPELJ

This page provides the latest information on two related business process standardization efforts supported by BEA, BPEL and BPELJ.

BPEL

WSBPEL (Web Services Business Process Execution Language, commonly referred to as "BPEL") defines a language for the formal specification of automated business processes. Processes written in BPEL can orchestrate in a standardized manner interactions between Web services using XML documents. These processes can be executed on any platform or product that complies with the BPEL specification. BPEL therefore enables customers to protect their investment in process automation by allowing them to move these process definitions between a wide variety of authoring tools and execution platforms. While there have been previous attempts to standardize business process definitions, BPEL has attracted an unprecedented level of interest and is the first to gain critical mass among software vendors.

As one of the original co-authors of the BPEL specification (along with IBM and Microsoft), BEA is a strong supporter of BPEL and is committed to its success. BPEL is currently in the midst of the standardization process within OASIS and BEA remains one of the primary drivers of this effort. Although the specification continues to change and therefore the promise of BPEL portability has not yet arrived, BEA and its partners are already planning for the introduction of BPEL support in their products to coincide with final standardization. BEA will provide a BPEL export facility for WebLogic Integration 8.1 in the Spring 2004 timeframe, with full support for the final BPEL standard to follow in the next major release of WebLogic Integration.

BPELJ

Although BPEL is clearly poised to become the dominant standard for orchestration of Web services, it does not address a number of significant issues faced today by organizations with heterogeneous IT environments. By design, BPEL only describes interactions between Web services. While nearly all systems or objects can be wrapped in Web service interfaces, this mechanism is itself a heavy weight abstraction that introduces overhead and complexity that may not always be necessary. When communicating with local resources (such as files, queues, or EJBs), lighter weight interfaces like Java APIs often provide a more direct approach. In addition, BPEL does not try to be a general-purpose programming language but instead focuses on business process logic ("programming in the large"). It is assumed that BPEL will be combined with other languages like Java, which are used to implement business functions ("programming in the small").

It was with these issues in mind that BEA first authored and sponsored JSR 207, which is chartered with exploring and standardizing the relationship between process languages like BPEL and the Java language and J2EE platform. JSR 207 was based on the business process definition utilized in WebLogic Integration 8.1, known as "JPD."

As a major next step to defining this Java process standard, BEA and IBM have closely collaborated to create a new specification entitled "BPELJ;" this specification has also been submitted to the JSR 207 working group for consideration. Described in a joint white paper, BPELJ is a combination of BPEL with Java that allows these two programming languages to be used together to build complete business process applications. By enabling BPEL and Java to work together, BPELJ allows each language to do what it does best. Since BPELJ is implemented via extensions to the BPEL language, any BPEL process is also a valid, executable BPELJ process. By standardizing these extensions, BEA and IBM are working to ensure that real world automated business processes will be truly portable and interoperable across the J2EE platform.

As the lead for JSR 207 and a co-author of both BPEL and BPELJ, BEA is committed to supporting BPELJ in its product line. In addition to the BPEL capabilities described above, BEA will provide full support for BPELJ in the next major release of WebLogic Integration. Current customers of WebLogic Integration 8.1 should be aware that BPELJ has been designed specifically with JPD and JSR 207 in mind, and consequently BEA will be able to provide an automatic and seamless migration experience from JPD to BPELJ. In addition, the next major release of WebLogic Integration will provide backward compatibility with JPD. Therefore, customers can build business processes today in WebLogic Integration 8.1 with full confidence that these processes will be both supported and standardized in the future.