Decentralized control structures for distributed workflow applications

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Mittasch, Christian^{a; *} | Weise, Thomas^b | Hesselmann, Margret^a

Affiliations: [a] Institut für Informatik, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, D-09596 Freiberg, Germany. E-mail: chris@informatik.tu-freiberg.de, hesselm@informatik.tu-freiberg.de | [b] iSYS Software GmbH, Lucile-Grahn-Straße 37, D-81675 München, Germany. E-mail: weise@isys-software.de

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author.

Abstract: This contribution provides an overview about decentralized control in Workflow Management Systems (WfMS) and introduces BPAFrame (Framework for Business Process Automation), a CORBA-based decentralized framework for development and runtime-support of workflows. Several possibilities of configuration and deployment of such an approach are discussed. Performance analysis on the BPAFrame prototype gives an opportunity to prove the influence of configuration and the impact of distribution of server processes. It will be shown that decentralized and generic components provide for current requirements on software systems like WfMS a convenient future adoption and integration into existing software infrastructures.

DOI: 10.3233/ICA-2000-7405

Journal: Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 327-341, 2000