Optimization of Business Process Execution in Services Architecture: A Systematic Literature Review

Web services have become a standard way to provide functions of information systems. The number of web services grows rapidly with the increasing popularity of microservices architecture. In consequence, many business processes are executed entirely through web services. Therefore, optimizing the performance of business process execution may bring many benefits. There are many optimization methods in this area. Our systematic literature review aims to introduce available methods to researchers interested in the optimization of business process execution. We queried four databases: ACM, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, and Springer. Out of 12150 initially found papers, we have selected 128 for the review. We have grouped methods presented in those papers into three stages of business process optimization: Resource Allocation, Service Composition, and Service Scheduling. Service Composition attracts the largest group of researchers with a vast majority of 119 articles in it. Moreover, the most popular are genetic algorithms. In general, researchers mainly propose heuristic methods that optimize business processes during run-time. We see the potential for further exploration at both Resource Allocation and Service Scheduling stages.