ABSTRACT
In Service-OrientedArchitecture, service and workflow are close related: workflow can be constituted with service, and workflow itself can be encapsulated into service as well. The loosely coupled autonomous and dynamic nature of service results in new challenges and characteristics of workflow management system (WFMS). Thus a new workflow paradigm, Service-Oriented Workflow (SOWF), comes up into being. With a motivating scenario, the characteristics and definition of workflow in service-oriented environments are presented. Then the meta-model and architecture of SOWF are proposed from both the build-time and run-time perspectives, based on which the key technologies for SOWF are discussed respectively, including process modeling, service matching and composition, dynamic workflow engine, workflow implementation technologies and performance evaluation.
