BPEL
Definition
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), short for Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) is an executable language for specifying interactions with Web Services. (Wikipedia)
“Web service interactions can be described in two ways. Executable business processes model actual behavior of a participant in a business interaction. Abstract business processes are partially specified processes that are not intended to be executed. An Abstract Process may hide some of the required concrete operational details. Abstract Processes serve a descriptive role, with more than one possible use case, including observable behavior and process template. WS-BPEL is meant to be used to model the behavior of both Executable and Abstract Processes.(Business Process Execution Language, retrieved jan 5 2009).”
Tools
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a workflow. BPMN was developed by Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) (Wikipedia).
“The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) specification provides a graphical notation for specifying business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD).[3] The objective of BPMN is to support business process management for both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics. The BPMN specification also provides a mapping between the graphics of the notation to the underlying constructs of execution languages, particularly BPEL4WS. (Business Process Modeling Notation, retrieved jan 6 2009).”