Attribute-based transactions in service oriented computing

We present a theory for the design and verification of distributed transactions in dynamically reconfigurable systems. Despite several formal approaches have been proposed to study distributed transactional behaviours, the inter-relations between failure propagation and dynamic system reconfiguration still need investigation. We propose a formal model for transactions in service oriented architectures (SOAs) inspired by the attribute mechanisms of the Java Transaction API. Technically, we model services in ATc (after ‘Attribute-based Transactional calculus’), a CCS-like process calculus where service declarations are decorated with a transactional attribute. Such attribute disciplines, upon service invocation, how the invoked service is executed with respect to the transactional scopes of the invoker. A type system ensures that well-typed ATc systems do not exhibit run-time errors due to misuse of the transactional mechanisms. Finally, we define a testing framework for distributed transactions in SOAs based on ATc and prove that under reasonable conditions some attributes are observationally indistinguishable.