Development of SOA-Based Software Systems - an Evolutionary Programming Approach

A software application has strong relationships with the business processes it supports. In the analysis phase those parts of the processes in which the software system is applied by its future users are analyzed. Taking an object-oriented approach, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is often used to model the relevant aspects of the business processes. In the design phase these models must be manually mapped to the business layer of the software application. The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers a promising new approach: The business process is described in a programming language [1], i.e. a process language which can be automatically mapped to an execution language and executed by a process engine. This article shows how Programming in the Large can be practically applied in a software engineering process. The Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) is used as a process programming language. A BPMN description can be mapped to the widely accepted Business Process Execution Language (BPEL).