Applying software fault tolerance patterns to WS-BPEL processes

Abstract

WS-BPEL is a standard language for orchestrating business processes of Web services. During service invocation, errors may occur from latent faults, e.g. partner services may not be available or not respond within time. Fault tolerance patterns, such as those for architectural design, error detection, and error recovery, can be used to handle partner service faults. This paper proposes an approach to applying patterns for fault tolerant software to WS-BPEL. Templates of WS-BPEL constructs to implement fault handling logic according to the patterns will be presented. With this approach, business processes can be made to execute in a fault tolerant manner within standard WS-BPEL execution environment.