A Client/Server Architecture for Distributed Workflow Management Systems

A specific task of distributed and parallel Information Systems is workflow management. In particular, workflow management systems execute business processes that run on top of distributed and parallel Information Systems. Parallelism is due to performance requirements and involves data and applications that are spread across a heterogeneous, distributed computing environment. Heterogeneity and distribution of the underlying computing infrastructure should be made transparent in order to alleviate programming and use. We introduce an implementation architecture for workflow management systems that meets best these requirements. Scalability (through transparent parallelism) and transparency with respect to distribution and heterogeneity are the major characteristics of this architecture. A generic client/server class library in an object-oriented envi ronment demonstrates the feasibility of the approach taken.