a semantic approach for designing business protocols
Business processes involve interactions among autonomous partners. We propose that these interactions be specified modularly as protocols. Protocols can be published, enabling implementors to independently develop components that respect published protocols and yet serve diverse interests. A variety of business protocols would be needed to capture subtle business needs. We propose that the same kinds of conceptual abstractions be developed for protocols as for information models. Specifically, we consider (1) refinement: a subprotocol may satisfy the requirements of a superprotocol, but support additional properties and (2) aggregation: a protocol may combine existing protocols. In support of the above, we develop a formal semantics for protocols, an operational characterization of them, and an algebra for protocol composition.
commitments business process composition web services