Orchestration or Choreography?

Now and then, we see discussions or debates about orchestration versus choreography. Often, it’s no more than the standard ‘my technique is better than your’s’, talking but not listening approach. Or, it’s focused on a simplified differentiation between BPEL and WS-CDL aimed at making sense of why we have so many different standards (good question). Here, the typical line is that BPEL is for orchestrating a single process or composite service, and WS-CDL is for coordinating interactions between processes. And while that’s essentially true, it doesn’t get to the essence of the distinction. But recently, I saw a really insightful presentation on the matter by John Tibbetts, Senior Cutter Consultant, at the Cutter Consortium Enterprise Architecture Forum in Mexico City. This article summarizes the ‘orchestration versus choreography’ points of John’s presentation “Using BPM and SOA to Improve Market Flexibility.”