Dynamic Change in Workflow-Based Coordination of Distributed Services

Abstract

Abstract. The rapid advances in distributed computing and network-based technologies have paved the path for a networked economy. In such a networked economy, software technologies for coordination of distributed services according to specific business policies or workflows will play an everincreasing role. A critical success factor in such automation is the handling of dynamic changes in the workflow in a dependable manner. This paper introduces an integrated architecture, called SWAP, for dynamic adaptation of workflow policies. It develops systematic methods for the design of agents that perform workflow policy change coordination and uses model-checking methods to analyze safety properties. We use the domain of E-commerce for the ordering of products to demonstrate the concepts and methods of our approach.