Hierarchical Verification for the BPMN Design Model Using State Space Analysis

Abstract

The BPMN design models are widely used in the software development process. Owing to the lack of BPMN standard semantics, formal verification is used to validate whether the BPMN design model is free of undesirable properties. The primary challenges of BPMN design model verification are the enormous size and complexity of BPMN design models; these challenges may lead to time-consuming processes for model abstraction and overcoming the state space explosion problem. This paper proposes a hierarchical verification technique for the state space analysis based on a colored Petri net (CPN). A BPMN partitioning technique and rules for the transformation of a BPMN into a CPN model are provided. The partitioning approach supports the unstructured BPMN design model, and the obtained CPN model also supports hierarchical verification. To validate and analyze the BPMN design model, the transformation technique and state space generator are implemented as a BPMN verification framework. This method is a viable option for the software process designers and is suitable for the large-scale BPMN design model verification.

Keywords

• Formal verification
• BPMN
• colored Petri net
• model transformation
• hierarchical verification