Distributed Data Management in Workkow Environments

Most existing workkow management systems (WFMSs) are based on a client/server architecture. This architecture simpliies the overall design but it does not match the distributed nature of workkow applications and it imposes severe limitations in terms of scalability and reliability. Moreover, workkow engines are not very sophisticated in terms of data management, forgetting the fact that workkow is, to a great extent, data ow. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture to address the issue of data management in a WFMS. This architecture is based on a fully distributed workkow engine for control ow, plus a set of loosely synchronized replicated databases for data ow. The resulting system ooers greater robustness and reliability as well as much better data handling capabilities than existing approaches. To better illustrate this novel architecture and its implications, two commercial systems are employed in this paper: FlowMark, as the workkow engine, and the replication capabilities of Lotus Notes, as the support system for distributed data management.