Flow and Data Compatibility for the Correct Interaction between Web Processes

Interaction protocols are essential elements for the integration of business processes. Usually, protocols have been agreed in advance by the participating organizations, playing each participant a predefined role. However, it is also possible that processes need to use/to impose a concrete interaction pattern. The question for another process is to decide whether the interaction between them is possible, which can be seen as a problem of compatibility between roles: flow compatibility, related to the ordering of the exchanged messages, and data compatibility, related to the information exchanged in each message. In this paper we propose a method for checking compatibility questions in multi-party interaction protocols. Compatibility is stated and checked in terms of reachability properties of a Petri net model that includes control flow aspects (stated in terms of the Petri net definition) and data flow aspects (stated in terms of an ontology-based description of the exchanged messages).