Grid service composition in BPEL for scientific applications

Grid computing aims to create an accessible virtual super-computer by integrating distributed computers to form a parallel infrastructure for processing applications. To enable service-oriented Grid computing, the Grid computing architecture was aligned with the current Web service technologies; thereby, making it possible for Grid applications to be exposed as Web services. The WSRF set of specifications standardized the association of state information with Web services (WSResource) while providing interfaces for the management of state data. The Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) is the leading standard for integrating Web services and as such has a natural affinity to the integration of Grid services. In this paper, we share our experience on using BPEL to integrate, create, and manage WS-Resources that implement the factory pattern. To the best of our knowledge, this work is among the handful approaches that successfully use BPEL for orchestrating WSRF-based services and the only one that includes the discovery and management of instances.