Extending GWorkflowDL: a Multi-Purpose Language for Workflow Enactment

Scientific workflows are becoming increasingly important as a vehicle for enabling science at a large scale. Lately, many Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) have been introduced in order to support the needs of several scientific fields, such as bioinformatics and cheminformatics. However, no platform is practically capable to address the computational power and storage capacity provided by production Grids needed by complex scientific processes. In this paper, we introduce a novel design for a WfMS which has been proposed inside the CoreGRID project. Based on the micro-kernel design pattern, we have developed a lightweight Petri Net engine where complex functionalities – such as the interaction towards Grid middlewares – are provided at higher-level and described by means of Petri Net-based workflows. As the interaction with resources is described by workflows, it is possible to extend our platform by programming it using the Grid Workflow Description Language (GWorkflowDL).