Merging application-centric and data-centric approaches to support transaction-oriented multi-system workflows

Abstract

Workflow management is primarily concerned with dependencies between the tasks of a workflow, to ensure correct control flow and data flow. Transaction management, on the other hand, is concerned with preserving data dependencies by preventing execution of conflicting operations from multiple, concurrently executing tasks or transactions. In this paper we argue that many applications will be served better if the properties of transaction and workflow models are supported by an integrated architecture. We also present preliminary ideas towards such an architecture.