Software Process Modeling and Execution: The UML4SPM to WS-BPEL Approach

Over the two past decades, the software process modeling community is being confronted to the following dilemma: how a software process modeling language (SPML) can be sufficiently abstract to hide the increasing complexity of development processes while being precise enough to be executed? Since no SPML succeeded in satisfying these apparently conflicting requirements, in this paper we propose to combine two languages: UML4SPM, an UML2.0-based software process modeling language and WS-BPEL (web services business process execution language). While UML4SPM brings expressiveness, understandability and abstraction in modeling software development processes, BPEL provides a semantically rich set of concepts for process executions. The mapping between the two languages, how do they complement each other, some issues and the value of the approach are discussed.