Design And Implementation Of Cloud Workflow System

CFlow is a workflow system designed as a cloud computing service using cloud computing technologies. The innovative WaaS (Workflow as a Service) model is firstly introduced in this paper. CFlow is the first WaaS implementation. Users can access all the functionalities of CFlow in web browser without installing any software on their computers.Normally, a workflow management system is designed as an enterprise application which is deployed on company intranet, it's capability to support Internet-level mass usage is limited. These workflow systems are not suitable for public internet service. There are various workflow systems exist, but few of them provides public workflow service to users on the Internet. CFlow is exceptional and is particularily designed for mass Internet usage.The key objects of CFlow are workflow template and workflow process. A template which defines the structure of a workflow is the abstract of a workflow patten in the real world, a node of template represents an action that should be taken by a role or a system, a link between two nodes indicates a routine of the workflow; Workflow process is initialized from a template, roles and attachments are loaded or provided during the process of initialization.The main components of CFlow are user management, template designer, workflow engine, task list, process management, designating management and artifact storage.CFlow was developed based on XML technology, its two essential objects-template and process-are represented as XML, and the processes are also driven by XML computing. CFlow has been deployed on the Internet; It will be improved continually in the future.