An experience on formal analysis of a high-level graphical SOA design

In this paper, we present the experience gained with the participation in a case study in which a novel high-level design language (UML4SOA) was used to produce a service-oriented system design, to be model checked with respect to the intended requirements and automatically translated into executable BPEL code. This experience, beyond revealing several uncertainties in the language definition, and several flaws in the designed model, has been useful to better understand the hidden risks of apparently intuitive graphical designs, when these are not backed up by a precise and rigorous semantics. The adoption of a rigorous or formal semantics for these notations, and the adoption of formal verification methods allow the full exploration of designs which otherwise risk to become simple to draw and update, but difficult to really understand in all their hidden ramifications. Automatic formal model generation from high level graphical designs is not only desirable but also pragmatically feasible e.g. using appropriate model transformation techniques. This is particularly valuable in the context of agile development approaches which are based on rapid and continuous updates of the system designs.