Symbolic probabilistic analysis and verification of inter-organizational workflow

Service-based Inter-Organizational Workflow (IOWF) processes support collaboration and cooperation of workflow (WF) processes attached to several partners. Guarantee the reliability and the correctness of IOWF is a very important need. In this paper, we propose an approach for formal modelling and verification of IOWF process models, described in BPEL4WS. IOWFs are modelled by means of Probabilistic Automata (PA). More than verification support, PA provides a numerical evaluation of the IOWF process. We propose the use of symbolic representation of PA to avoid the state space explosion. The IOWF behaviour is checked against properties expressed in Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic PCTL. The verification and the analysis are performed in an automated way using the PRISM model checker.