About Business Process Execution Language?

Business Process Execution Language

1. Business Process Execution Language, platform independent, XML-based
2. A language to specify the behavior of business processes between Web services and as Web services
3. Contains process flow constructs for conditional branching, parallel processes, nested sub-processes, process joins, etc.
4. Uses WSDL to describe process interfaces so that they can be more easily integrated into other processes or applications.
5. Provided as an open standard under royalty free terms.

BPEL Goals:

1.      Platform independence – XML based language (Java, .Net implementations available)

2.      Services and Messages are first order citizens

3.      Provide an asynchronous programming model

4.      Leverage runtime metadata based interface like WSDL

5.      ‘Enterprise ready’ (security, transactional, reliable, scalable, etc.)

What's new in WS-BPEL 2.0?
1.    New activity types: repeatUntil, validate, forEach (parallel and sequential), rethrow, extensionActivity, compensateScope
2.    Renamed activities: switch/case renamed to if/else, terminate renamed to exit
3.    Termination Handler added to scope activities to provide explicit behavior for termination
4.    Variable initialization
5.    XSLT for variable transformations (New XPath extension function bpws:doXslTransform)
6.    XPath access to variable data (XPath variable syntax $variable[.part]/location)
7.    XML schema variables in Web service activities (for WS-I doc/lit style service interactions)
8.    Locally declared messageExchange (internal correlation of receive and reply activities)
9.    Clarification of Abstract Processes (syntax and semantics)
10.    Enable expression language overrides at each activity

What is UDDI and SOAP?

UDDI:

1.      UDDI stands for Universal Description, Discovery and Integration

2.      UDDI is a platform-independent framework for describing services, discovering business services, and integrating business services by using the Internet.

3.      UDDI is a directory for storing information about web services

4.      UDDI is a directory of web service interfaces described by WSDL

5.      UDDI communicates via SOAP

SOAP:

1. SOAP provides the definition of the XML-based information which can be used for exchanging structured and typed information between peers in a decentralized, distributed environment
2. SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol
3. SOAP is a communication protocol
4. SOAP is for communication between applications
5. SOAP is a format for sending messages
6. SOAP is designed to communicate via Internet
7. SOAP is platform independent
8. SOAP is language independent
9. SOAP is based on XML
10. SOAP is simple and extensible
11. SOAP allows you to get around firewalls
12. SOAP will be developed as a W3C standard

What are web services and web Services standards?

Definition:

• Web Service is a self-contained, modular application built on standard internet and XML technologies, described and published to the network for use by other programs
• Web Service are used to implement Service Oriented Architecture

Web Services:

• Web Services can be components of Web Applications 
• Can communicate using open protocols
• Are self-contained and self-describing 
• Are published, found and used through the Web (UDDI – Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
• XML is the basis for Web Services 
• Web Services platform is a simple & interoperable

Goal of Web Service:

• Web services is to make functional building blocks
• Accessible over standard Internet protocols
• Independent from platforms and programming languages.
• These services can be new applications or just wrapped around existing legacy systems to make them network-enabled.

Web Services Standards:

• XML       : To tag the data in a structured format 
• SOAP     : Is a protocol to transfer the data
• WSDL    : Is used to describe the services available 
• UDDI      : Is used for listing what services available

How to test a WSDL if it is working or not?

There are many ways & web service testing tools in market ….

               1.Using SOAP UI tool SOAPUI where you can create a Soap request, invoke the webservice operation and then verify the Soap responses using this tool.

  I have discussed how to import WSDL in SOAP UI in my previous posts… 

 http://lakkireddy-soa.blogspot.in/2012/08/how-import-wsdl-in-soap-ui.html 

2. We can test the web service in a browser also.

3. We can also test a service using the Administration Console. (Open the Web Services component, select the web service in the listing on the General tab, and select Test. For details, click the Help button in the Administration Console)  

4. We can test the web service from OWSM Console also.

I have already discussed in my previous posts. How to import WSDL in SOAP UI…I will discuss about testing WSDL in browser and OWSM in next posts.

What about Oracle AIA?

AIA is an integration mechanism – it’s a bunch of Oracle products designed to support integration across a wide range of Oracle applications, as well as non-Oracle applications.
In simple words: A smart integration mechanism, that can support & integrate the whole bunch of oracle products with EBS or non-EBS products (like SAP) and in this middleware is used to stitching.
This is a framework in which the functionality of Oracle's vast application portfolio - Oracle E-Business, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards - can be recombined and tailored to enterprise needs.
Oracle AIA seeks to simplify this process and make it more seamless - and far less costly.
Technical products inside AIA:
1.    Siebel
2.    Adapters
3.    Oracle Warehouse Builder
4.    BPEL Process Manager
5.    BPEL Repository
6.    E-Business Suite