Paper on Web Services Choreography accepted at the AMCIS 2009

Paper Title:From Service Conversation Models to WS-CDL

Abstract: Changing business environments are forcing organizations to develop flexible and adaptable enterprise systems. To accomplish this and to solve associated systems integration issues, many are moving towards web service technology. Two key ingredients of web services based solution are service composition and service choreography. While there has been lot of advancement in respect to service composition, service choreography rather largely remains an open problem. WS-CDL specification is considered to be a candidate standard for service choreography; however, consensus on support mechanisms to develop conversation models depicting peer-to-peer interactions are yet to be reached. In this paper, we develop an approach as well required heuristics for identifying service interaction patterns from business process models and using them to develop conversation models. We provide detailed discussion on heuristics, illustrate our approach through an example, as well as indicate how these conversation models can be used for generating WS-CDL specifications.

http://www.amcis2009.org/

Paper accepted at the IEEE Symposium on SOA Standards

Paper Title: Standardizing Web Services: Overcoming ‘Design by Committee’

Abstract:
Web service standards, like several other IT standards, are anticipatory, i.e., they are designed and codified in anticipation of actual adoption and use. As a result, the setting of web service standards takes on properties that resemble the designing of software artifacts. In contrast, the traditional perspective on standards views them as law-like systems that legislate modes of
behavior, product structures or specifications. The two perspectives – ‘design’ and ‘legislation’ – can sometimes be at odds. In the software engineering community, the phrase ‘design by committee’ has come to symbolize designs that are not effective, not elegant and not addressing issues that are core to the original intentions. Current efforts and recent outcomes in web
services standards appear to have overcome this taboo. We demonstrate, with the help of an empirical study, how the participants interact, and the roles they take on to produce web service standards.

Authors: Sandeep Purao, John Bagby, and Karthikeyan Umapathy

This paper will be published in the IEEE Symposium on SOA Standards, which will be held along with IEEE Services 2008 conference.

http://conferences.computer.org/services/2008/ieee.htm

Paper accepted at the IEEE Services 2007 PhD Symposium on Service Computing

Paper Title:
A Study of Language-Action Perspective as a Theoretical Framework for Web Services

Abstract
This dissertation contributes to the services science discipline by examining appropriateness of Language-Action Perspective (LAP) as a theoretical framework for web services, the technology component of services science. This research consists of three inter-dependent studies. The first study (completed) investigates whether LAP constructs can describe and explain the web services architecture. Findings from this study indicate that there is a lack of mechanisms to generate conversation specifications that guide interactions among services. Conversation specifications are crucial for developing large-scaled enterprise integration solutions using web services. The second study (work-in-progress) builds on this finding and demonstrates the appropriateness of LAP constructs to access design knowledge to develop web service solutions for enterprise integration. The third study (work-in-progress) evaluates the usefulness of LAP constructs to develop effective web service solutions (artifact developed in the second study).

Link to the PhD Symposium

Paper accepted at the Services Computing Conference (SCC) 2007

Paper Title:
Towards A Theoretical Foundation for Web Services – The Language-Action Perspective (LAP) Approach

Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a discourse and search for appropriate theoretical foundations for web services. The complexity of web services technology demands such a foundation. A theoretical foundation can provide adequate guidance not only to accelerate research related to web services, but can also promote their acceptance. Based on an extensive review of prior work in SCC and ICWS, we identify theories implicitly used for web services research, and propose the Language-Action Perspective (LAP) as an important and necessary complement to these. Our proposal follows the observation that there is a close match between the core concerns of web services and the LAP approach. Our ongoing work is aimed at validating appropriateness of LAP as a theoretical framework for web services through empirical research.

Co-Authored with Sandeep Purao.

Link to conference page: SCC 2007

Information Systems Frontiers Journal paper

Finally! My Information Systems Frontiers Journal paper is published.

Here is the link to access the paper from Publisher web site
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r282201465372g67/

Title of the paper:
A theoretical investigation of the emerging standards for web services

Abstract:
Currently, standards for web services are being developed via three different initiatives (W3C, Semantic web services and ebXML). To the best of our knowledge, no theoretical perspectives underlie these standardization efforts. Without the benefit of a strong theoretical basis, the results, within and across these initiatives, have remained piecemeal. We suggest ‘Language–Action Theories’ as a plausible perspective that can effectively define, assess and refine web services standards. In this paper, we first investigate the existing initiatives to identify commonalities that point to theories of ‘Language–Action’ as an appropriate theoretical basis for web services standards. Next, we adapt work from these theories to develop a comprehensive reference framework for understanding web services standards. Finally, we use this reference framework to assess the three initiatives, and analyze the findings to provide insights for future development and refinement of web services standards.

Paper accepted at the ICSOC PhD Symposium

Paper Title:
A Study of Language-Action Perspective as a Theoretical Framework for Web Services

Abstract:
This dissertation contributes to services science discipline by examining appropriateness of Language-Action Perspective (LAP) as a theoretical framework for web services, the technology component of services science. This study is conducted through three essays. The first (completed) investigates whether LAP constructs can describe and explain the web services architecture. Findings from this essay indicate that there is lack of mechanisms to generate conversation policies that guide interactions between applications. Conversation polices are crucial for developing large-scaled enterprise integration solutions using web services. The second (work-in-progress) builds on this finding. This essay demonstrates appropriateness of LAP constructs to structure design knowledge to develop web services solutions for enterprise integration. The third (work-in-progress) evaluates usefulness of LAP structured design knowledge to develop web services solutions (artifact developed in the second essay).

Link to PhD Symposium
http://infolab.uvt.nl/phd-icsoc06/

Paper accepted in SCC 2006

Paper Title
Designing Enterprise Solutions with Web Services and Integration Patterns
Abstract
Web services are an ideal implementation platform for integrating disparate legacy systems because they are platform-independent. Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP) represent possible design solutions that may be used to construct these enterprise integration solutions. Constructing design solutions with EIP that build on the platform-independence allowed by web services requires that the former be converted into mechanisms that may be implemented with the latter. One such mechanism is conversation models that may be used to implement interactions among web services representing different legacy systems. No methodologies exist that designers can use to construct integration solutions using web services and EIP in this manner. In this paper, we outline such a methodology that generates the design elements in the form of conversation policies for web services.
Co-Authored with
Sandeep Purao

Integration Imperative

This article written by Rich Schwerin appeared in Oracle Magazine in November/December 2004 issue.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/04-nov/o64industry.html

This article provides good general overview of BPEL. This article is definitely good for beginners.

For those who are interested in learning about BPEL4WS in details, should go below link

IBM BPEL4WS Tutorial

Bright Future for J2EE Web Services Development

This article appeared in Web Services Journal on October 23.

http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=46718

J2EE based Web Services does have bright future due to broad range of J2EE applications which allows us to expose our existing applications as Web Services and some of those tools does work at a minimal complexity level. Glad that author pointed out importance of security, reliability, and performance of Web Services, without which there is no future for Web Services.

Executing BPEL Process

ExecutingBPEL.pdf

This document provides information on installing JBOSS Server, installing BPEL Engine on JBOSS server, installing WASP Java server. This document also provides information on writing WSDL and BPEL4WS file to deploy a BPEL Process service. This document also provides information on writing WASP Client to execute BPEL Process service.

Technical Bulletins for WASP tools

Please follow below link to get techinical bulletins for WASP tools.

http://dev.systinet.com/support/technical_bulletins/index

In this link you will find up-to-date information on reported issues, work-arounds, and solutions to known issues between releases of WASP tools.

Application Server Architecture and BPEL - Promises and challenges

This article appeared in Web Services Journal, July 2, 2004. Author of the article - Amlan Debnath.
http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=45517&DE=1

This article provides good overview of motives of BPEL and reason outs why BPEL is the core of web service. Author says that BPEL is designed with asynchronous services at its core, but this complicates the process of building a scalable, reliable BPEL engine. Author explains functionality of BPEL process using a simple order management process. Author figuratively explains evolution of application and server platform. Author provide overview of other key standards that are being developed, which are Extensible WSDL Binding Framework (JSR-208), Process Flow Coordination (BPEL), Reliable Web Messaging (WS-Reliability), Security (WS-Security), XML Data and Transformation (JAXB, XQuery), User Interactivity (WSRP), and Choreography and Contracts (WS-CDL). Even though author suggests that many standards are less mature, he believes these developments are going to dramatically change how we build applications and that the application server and BPEL are at the core of this new wave.

I also agree with author that even though many standards are still immature, web services is going to stay and success of web services depends upon success of BPEL. It is good to see industry recognizes this fact and actively working on to produce better tools.

Good web services tool for development and deploying of services

Systinet
Systinet Server for Java
Systinet Server for Java Documentation
Systinet UDDI Registry
Discussion forum for Systinet's Web Applications and Services Platform (WASP)