Using UNICORE and WS-BPEL for Scientific Workflow Execution in Grid Environments

Within the BIS-Grid project, a BMBF-funded project in the context of the German D-Grid initiative, we developed the BIS-Grid workflow engine that is based upon service extensions to UNICORE 6 to use an arbitrary WS-BPEL workflow engine and standard WS-BPEL to orchestrate stateful, WSRF-based Grid services. Although aimed at proving the feasibility of applying Grid technologies for business information systems integration, we illustrate that this engine is also well-suited for scientific workflow execution, making standard WS-BPEL-based tooling accessible for scientific workflows. In this paper, we describe using the BIS-Grid engine for the execution of scientific workflows. This includes a differentiation of scientific and business workflows in general and an analysis of the suitability of the BISGrid infrastructure to execute scientific workflows. We propose reusable WS-BPEL patterns for typical scientific workflow activities whereas job submission is focused. Finally, we prospect our future work.