Exotica/FMDC: Handling Disconnected Clients in a Workflow Management System.

Abstract

Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) are a first generation of products that attempt to manage the execution of business processes by large numbers of users distributed over a wide area and using heterogeneous resources. They are a very promising venue for collaborative systems but, in most cases, the autonomy of the users is greatly restricted due to architectural and design considerations. This is a severe restriction, especially when considering the emergence of mobile computing, and the increase in use of laptops and small computers which are connected to a network only occasionally. In this paper, we discuss how disconnected workflow clients can be supported while preserving the correctness of the overall execution and allowing coordinated interactions between the different users. Disconnected client support provides a great deal of flexibility in the usability of a WFMS and enhances the system's resilience to failures. 1 Introduction The recent increase in the availability of pow...