Formal methods for service composition

Current approaches to service composition range from industrial standards (like BPEL and OWL-S) to formal methods (like Petri nets and process algebras). In this paper, we survey several such approaches and compare them on the basis of a selected set of characteristics (like compensations, trust and performance). Our conclusion is that formal methods, including tool support, are ideal to assist designers and developers in their work since their use leads to increased confidence in the obtained service compositions.