Study Of The Workflow System Based On Open Source Web Application Server (Zope)

With the wide application of computer technology in the daily life, more and more work is needed to complete by computer. At the same time, all kinds of information systems are broadly used. But almost all these systems run independently, they lacks of necessary communication, collaboration and sensuousness, they have many serious shorting in collaborating with many activities and finishing the same task. Since 1990s Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) were drawn on extensive attention by researchers and industry fields.Zope is an open source web application server which is designed for enterprise oriented application. It provides strong function for web based application and is a complete development frame and includes many enable products. Applications which developed on zope are scalable.In this paper we firstly research the important technologies within workflow management system: workflow model, workflow reference model etc. Then we analyze the state and future of workflow management technology. Thirdly we give a discussion of zope system structure, running mechanism and function servers, we particularly analyze ZODB running mechanism and how zope realize its transactions. We also analyze openflow's work theory, capability characteristic, especially its reliability and flexibility; At last we validate capability of the zope/openflow by building an order management systems.