Same model for both Public and Private process ??

I have some confusion as described below ...

"Private process" is providing an internal implementation view of a party 
in a long running business interaction when the party is implementing its 
behavior using orchestration engine.  "Private process" is about specifying 
the activities he takes in responding to an event (which can be receive a 
particular message or send a particular message).  The process variables, 
routing decisions... etc, describe the detail implementation logic is 
clearly specified.  The modeling language (e.g. BPEL, BPML) is semantically 
equivalent to a flow chart.

"Public process" is providing an external view of a party in a long running 
business interaction regardless of whether that party is implementing his 
behavior using an orchestration engine.  Public process is about specifying 
all possible states of that party.  And then for each state, what events 
are legitimate (event can be receive a particular message or send a 
particular message) ?  And after that, what is all the "possible" next 
states ?  The major difference is "public process" is NOT to describe which 
route to take under what conditions.  Instead, it describe what are the 
possibilities.  It seems to me a "state transition diagram" is a natural 
fit to describe the "public process".

Therefore, I have a question if the "public process" should be based on a 
completely different model (a "state transition diagram") than the "private 
process" (a "flow chart diagram").  Correct me if I misunderstand, it seems 
HP's WS-Conversation-Language is taking this approach.

But I also hear that "public process" can be described as a subset of a 
"private process".  If you take out the "process variable", "assign 
statements", and the "conditions" in the switch blocks and loops ... etc 
from the "private process", then you will have the "public process".  In 
other words, public process can be just use the same model of "private 
process".  It seems WSCI and BPEL-private process is taking this approach.

I also heard that the "flow-chart" is equivalent to "state diagram".  They 
are just a dual-representation to each other.

Any comments and thoughts ... ?

Best regards,
Ricky

Received on Sunday, 2 February 2003 01:53:02 UTC