Because web services can take a long time to return a response, a BPEL process service component must be able to time out and continue with the rest of the flow after a period.

This chapter provides an example of how to program a BPEL process service component to wait one minute for a response from a web service named Star Loan that provides loan offers. If Star Loan does not respond in one minute, then the BPEL process service component automatically selects an offer from another web service named United Loan. In the real world, the time limit is more like 48 hours. However, for this example, you do not want to wait that long to see if your BPEL process service component is working properly.

Because asynchronous web services can take a long time to return a response, a BPEL process service component must be able to time out, or give up waiting, and continue with the rest of the flow after a certain amount of time.

You can use a pick activity to configure a BPEL flow to either wait a specified amount of time or to continue performing its duties. To set an expiration period for the time, you can use the wait activity.