BPEL is a standard for defining business process flows using an eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based language for Web services orchestration.

BPEL is based on the Web services model and the concept of orchestration. BPEL executes processes and only interfaces to Web services. Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) expresses and abstracts processes and provides the ability to generate BPEL code as well as other code.

The medium- to long-range objective for Business Process Management (BPM) is interoperability at the model level (i.e. BPMN) vs. the code level (i.e. BPEL), and to transcend key limitations in BPEL such as no/poor support for human workflow and sub-processes. Sub-processes are process fragments that share context data and state management with the calling parent. With BPEL a sub-process is just another process, which requires data sharing and state management to be explicitly defined in the process logic.

Governance and Risk Management Implications

GRC objectives are facilitated by business processes with well defined inputs and outputs that are focused on customer requirements. BPEL is one element of a business process technology stack useful for implementing business solutions more amenable to GRC constraints.