BPEL-SPE

A technical white paper "WS-BPEL Extension for Sub-Processes: BPEL-SPE" published by IBM and SAP proposes an extension to WS-BPEL that allows for the definition of sub-processes that can be reused within the same or across multiple WS-BPEL processes. A formal language specification defining the precise syntax and semantics of the BPEL-SPE extension is planned for later release. WS-BPEL v2.0 defines a model for web services composition through aggregation.

Some of the most powerful J2EE integration services, like Oracle BPEL Server or WebSphere Integration Server, use WS-BPEL as process definition language. For my standpoint WS-BPEL plays a key role for the interoperability between different integration server vendors. Of course it has some limitation for different business process scenarios like Business Rules, Human workflow or to support specific based technologies like EJB or .NET components; so that some vendors already started to define extensions to address those particular areas. Is Maybe a good time to consider that the use of to many extensions can dismiss the whole purpose of WS-BPEL?