Model-based verification of event-driven business processes

ABSTRACT

Event-driven business processes employ event-processing capabilities to analyze internal and external event streams for complex situations that may impact on process execution. An open issue is the verification of such event-driven business processes in order to detect, among others, deadlocks. Individual verification approaches for business processes and event processing networks exist. However, even if the business processes and the event processing networks individually are deadlock-free, deadlocks may arise due to the integration of event processing networks and business processes into event-driven business processes. This paper introduces a verification technique for event-driven business processes. The main aspects of the technique are (1) to formalize business process models and event processing networks as an integrated petri-net, and (2) to perform reachability analyses of the integrated petri-nets to reveal deadlocks. We provide a proof-of-concept realization utilizing petri-net simulators, demonstrate the applicability of the verification technique, and sketch future extensions of the technique.

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Index Terms

• General and reference

  • Cross-computing tools and techniques

    • Validation

• Software and its engineering

  • Software creation and management

    • Software verification and validation

      • Empirical software validation

      • Process validation

  • Software organization and properties

    • Software functional properties

      • Correctness

    • Software system structures

      • Software system models

        • Petri nets

• Theory of computation

  • Logic

    • Proof theory