Goals of BPEL

•Defines business processes that interact with external entities through Web services

•The definitions use XML and are not concerned with the graphical representation of processes

•Defines a set of Web service orchestration concepts

 •Provides both hierarchical and graph-like control regimes

 •Provides data manipulation functions sufficient for manipulation of data needed to define process relevant data and control flow

•Supports an identification mechanism for process instances at the application message level

•Supports the implicit creation and termination of process instances as the basic lifecycle mechanism

 •Defines a long-running transaction model to support failure recovery

 •Uses Web services as the model for process decomposition and assembly

 •Builds on compatible Web services standards