Dynamic binding of principal services in a cross-enterprise business process management system

• US 20060004783A1
• Filed: 05/18/2004
• Published: 01/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Carr, Derek W., Wesley, Ajamu A., Eacmen, Peter P., Pena, Ronny A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,799,003 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/17 Details of further file system functions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

The present invention is a method, system and apparatus for dynamically binding principal services to activities in a business process in a cross-enterprise business process management system. In a preferred aspect of the invention, the system can include a business process specification document processing engine configured to process business process specification documents in which each of the documents defines a business process. A deployment service can be coupled to the engine and programmed to generate and deploy partner link instances for corresponding partner links specified in the documents. Finally, a link base authority can be configured to notify each partner link instance when an endpoint reference to a principal service has changed. Notably, the business process specification documents can include BPEL documents. As such, the business process specification document processing engine can include a BPEL4WS run-time engine.

Claims

1. A cross-enterprise business process management system comprising:

a business process specification document processing engine configured to process business process specification documents, each of said documents defining a business process;

a deployment service coupled to said engine and programmed to generate and deploy partner link instances for corresponding partner links specified in said documents; and

,

a link base authority configured to notify each partner link instance when an endpoint reference to a principal service has changed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said business process specification documents comprise business process execution language (BPEL) documents.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein said business process specification document processing engine comprises a business process execution language for Web services (BPEL4WS) run-time engine.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said business process comprises a sequence of business activities embodied within corresponding Web services.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein each of said partner link instances comprises a Web service encapsulating a partner link instance and acting as a proxy to a corresponding principal service.

6. A method for dynamically binding principal services to partner links in a cross-enterprise business process management system, the method comprising the steps of:

deploying a partner link instance for each partner link specified in a business process specification document;

re-factoring said document to bind each said partner link to each said deployed partner link instance in lieu of a direct binding to a principal service;

adding an event handler to said business process specification document to handle a dynamic change to an endpoint reference to said principal service; and

,

registering each of said partner link instances to receive notification of a change to an endpoint reference to a principal service.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said deploying step further comprises the step of deploying each said partner link instance as a Web service proxy to a corresponding principal service.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said re-factoring step comprises the steps of:

modifying said business process specification document to bind each said partner link to each said deployed partner link instance in lieu of a direct binding to a principal service; and

,

further modifying a companion Web services definition language (WSDL) document for said business process specification document to reference said event handler.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein said registering step comprises the step of registering an XLink for each said partner link in a link base authority.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising the steps of:

invoking said event handler;

changing an endpoint reference to a principal service bound to a deployed partner link instance;

notifying said deployed partner link instance that a change to said endpoint reference has occurred; and

,

modifying subsequent service calls to said principal service to reflect said changed endpoint reference.

11. A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for dynamically binding principal services to partner links in a cross-enterprise business process management system, the computer program comprising a routine set of instructions which when executed by a machine cause the machine to perform the steps of:

deploying a partner link instance for each partner link specified in a business process specification document;

re-factoring said document to bind each said partner link to each said deployed partner link instance in lieu of a direct binding to a principal service;

adding an event handler to said business process specification document to handle a dynamic change to an endpoint reference to said principal service; and

,

registering each of said partner link instances to receive notification of a change to an endpoint reference to a principal service.

12. The machine readable storage of claim 11, wherein said deploying step further comprises the step of deploying each said partner link instance as a Web service proxy to a corresponding principal service.

13. The machine readable storage of claim 12, wherein said re-factoring step comprises the steps of:

modifying said business process specification document to bind each said partner link to each said deployed partner link instance in lieu of a direct binding to a principal service; and

,

further modifying a companion Web services definition language (WSDL) document for said business process specification document to reference said event handler.

14. The machine readable storage of claim 11, wherein said registering step comprises the step of registering an XLink for each said partner link in a link base authority.

15. The machine readable storage of claim 11, further comprising the steps of:

invoking said event handler;

changing an endpoint reference to a principal service bound to a deployed partner link instance;

notifying said deployed partner link instance that a change to said endpoint reference has occurred; and

,

modifying subsequent service calls to said principal service to reflect said changed endpoint reference.