Metrics for BPEL Process Reusability Analysis in a Workflow System

This paper proposes a quantitative metric to analyze potential reusability of a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) process. The approach is based on the description and logic mismatch probability of a BPEL process that will be reused within potential contexts. The mismatch probabilities have been consolidated to a metric formula for quantifying the probability of potential reuse of BPEL processes. An initial empirical evaluation suggests that the proposed metric properly predicts potential reusability of BPEL processes. According to the experiment, there exists a significant statistical correlation between the results of the metric and the experts' judgments. This indicates predictive dependence between the proposed metric and the potential reusability of BPEL processes as a measuring stick for this phenomenon. If future studies ascertain these findings by replicating this experiment, the practical implications of such a metric are early detection of the design flaws and aiding architects to judge various design alternatives.