Method and software for publishing a business process orchestration as a web service

• US 20050138634A1
• Filed: 12/18/2003
• Published: 06/23/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Elien, Jean-Emile, Bhaskara, Udaya Kumar, Klug, Joseph A., Wu, Andrew H., Luty, Andrew R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,404,188 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/315
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web

Abstract

A method of generating code that permits client access to a business process orchestration running on a server as a web service using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Business process orchestrations in XLANG are converted to a web service implementation description from which the Web services code is generated. During runtime, when a SOAP request message comes into the server, it is passed to the target web method. The message is then passed to a Web services adapter that submits the request for further processing by the backend system. The response is forwarded to the Web services adapter, which returns the response as a SOAP response message to the client.

Claims

1. A method of generating a Web service to expose a business process orchestration, comprising:

generating a web service implementation and WSDL from an assembly representative of said business process orchestration;

generating orchestration proxy code from the web service implementation description;

generating a web service implementation and WSDL from a selection of schemas provided by a BizTalk Adapter. and

wrapping said orchestration proxy code within a web method.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the web service implementation description comprises using .NET Reflection to extract information regarding orchestrations and ports contained in the BizTalk assembly.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising mapping XLANG to web service implementation and WDSL.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating or referencing CLR types (.NET classes) to represent XLANG message types.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

mapping XLANG messages and messagetype parts to web method parameters and return value in the web service implementation such that an input parameter name in the implementation is obtained by taking the messagetype part name for each part of the request message and an output parameter name is obtained by taking the messagetype part name for each part of the request message and appending an underscore.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising mapping XLANG ports and porttypes to a web service class in the implementation which corresponds to a porttype element in the WSDL file.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said web service class name is generated by concatenating the XLANG module name, service name, and port name separated by underscores and with all dots converted to underscores so as to produce a valid unique C# identifier name.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating an ASP.NET web service project from the web service implementation description;

generating data types (.NET classes) used as web method parameters; and

generating each web method specific.

9. A method of exposing a business process orchestration as a Web service, comprising:

providing a graphical user interface to guide a user through a process of defining parameters of the Web service; and

generating a Web service project in accordance with the defined parameters.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the parameters comprise an assembly to export, SOAP headers, a name and location of a Web services project.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the parameters further comprise orchestrations and ports associated with said assembly selected by the user.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing the underlying Web service code associated with said Web service project to the user for further editing if desired

13. A method of receiving data submitted to a web method exposing a business process orchestration, comprising:

receiving a web method request;

submitting said request to an adapter for web services;

submitting the request to a receive pipeline and passing the request as a document to an orchestration port; and

passing the document to a backend application for processing.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the web method request is received as a SOAP message.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising returning a response from said backend application, said response being wrapped in a web method response envelope for return to a client.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein said web method response is a SOAP message.

15. The method of 13, wherein each part of the SOAP message corresponds to a parameter to be passed to a target web method.