Research On Key Technique For Adaptive Workflow

As workflow technology is widely used in practical applications, it is found that many workflow products could not support dynamic alterations of business requirements. Workflow system is inflexible and in-adaptive. Therefore, how to implement workflow adaptive ability is becoming a concerned problem in workflow research, and it is also difficulty. Under this background, the key issues on how to implement workflow adaptive ability is discussed.Adaptive workflow emphasizes system adaptive ability to evolution and its high efficiency. WfMC workflow element model describes the basic elements of the model and the relationships between the elements, but does not specify the method to construct an adaptive workflow framework. So it is not adequate to establish an adaptive dynamic workflow system framework, and it must be extended. In this thesis, we add policy to the workflow model, implement system entities and entities behaviors separation, and improve the adaptive ability of workflow system to the changes of circumstance and requirements.Mentioned the execution phase, another critical technology in adaptive workflow - reflection is discussed in the thesis. With reflection, workflow system is divided into base level and meta level, and base level is the abstraction to certain application domain, meta level is the expression of base level and system. Workflow model, as base level of reflection system, describe business process, while policy, as an meta object in meta level of reflection system, describe workflow model entities behavior. In meta level, to cooperate the whole system operation, and design interceptor, monitor and attempter meta objects.The advantages of policy management are the ability to implement the workflow entities and entities behaviors separation, and the ability to reconfigure the system behavior during execution phase. The advantage of reflection is the ability to reflect the configuration during workflow instance during execution phase. Policy management and reflection are key technologies to implement the adaptive workflow system for the circumstance and requirement changes. At the same time, they are the first experiment in workflow management system.