The Design Of Component-based Universal Workflow Engine

Currently, the designs of workflow engine are often related to certain business domains and always have conglutination with specific business logic code, this will cause engine has poor universality. Studies have shown that the engine has two main functions: dispatch function and service function. By separating the two functions can make the engine has a strong universality. This article divides the workflow engine into engine core and IOC container two main models according to function. Engine core uses the abstract interfaces complete the dispatch of the business processes in a unified way, but does not contain specific business logic. The IOC container section is associated with specific business domain, mainly used to complete components instantiation, management of life cycle and maintain the dependency of them.This paper gives the way how to design the Component-Based universal workflow engine. It gives the architecture of the engine, the conception, classification and description of the process component, and implements the componentization of the workflow model. Also, it gives the design of the relative Interfaces and method prototype of the main model in the implementation level. At the same time, making IOC container to be the process component's assemblage factory can configure the relationship of them and make them interact at run-time. Universal engine's feature is making the engine core be absorbed in process scheduling, the IOC container be absorbed in service assemblage, so the engine can have a stronger universality. To some content, the universal engine can adapt to the change of the market and meet the development needs of the contemporary companies.