An Architecture for the interoperability of Workflow Models

Abstract

The goal of this work is to contribute to the field of interoperability of Workflow models. To achieve this interoperability, we have built a generic architecture that addresses three levels of abstraction: the common meta-model that the Workflow models must share, the common model that they enact collectively, and the common data model whose management is shared. So, the approach we have adopted is based on a strategy of uniformity to solve the problems related to the semantic, syntactic and execution platform heterogeneity. The common meta-model gathers the common concepts that are shared between all these Workflow models and it defines their semantics. These concepts (activity, event, etc.) are extracted from different formalisms used in the field of business process (or Workflow). This latter allows us to instantiate a canonical model that describes only common parts (activities, artifacts). As for the common data model, it is instantiated by the common model. For the control interoperability, we have adopted an approach that deals with a more flexible connection mechanism based on events through a connection server. This approach can be implemented above any interoperability platform (CORBA, EJB, etc.). Also, the shared canonical model that we have proposed is generic, simple and re-usable