Michael Gillmann
ABSTRACT
Workflow management systems (WFMS) that are geared for the orchestration of business processes across multiple organizations are complex distributed systems: they consist of multiple workflow engines, application servers, and communication middleware servers such as ORBs, where each of these server types can be replicated on multiple computers for scalability and availability.Finding an appropriate system configuration with guaranteed application-specific quality of service in terms of throughput, response time, and tolerable downtime is a major challenge for human system administrators. This paper presents a tool that largely automates the task of configuring a distributed WFMS. Based on a suite of mathematical models, the tool derives the necessary degrees of replication for the various server types in order to meet specified goals for performance and availability as well as "performability" when service is degraded due to outages of individual servers. The paper describes the configuration tool, with emphasis on how to capture the load behavior of workflows in a realistic manner. We also present extensive experiments that evaluate the accuracy of the tool's underlying models and demonstrate the practical feasibility of automating the task of configuring a distributed WFMS. The experiments use a detailed simulation which in turn has been validated through measurements with the Mentor-lite prototype system.
- G. Alonso, D. Agrawal, A. El Abbadi, C. Mohan, Functionality and Limitations of Current Workflow Management Systems, IEEE Expert, 12(5), 1997]]Google Scholar
- T. Bauer, P. Dadam, A Distributed Execution Environment for Large-Scale Workflow Management Systems with Subnets and Server Migration, CoopIS, 1997]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- T Bauer, P. Dadam, Distribution Models for Workflow Management Systems - Classification and Simulation (in German), Informatik Forschung und Entwicklung, 14(4), Springer, 1999]]Google Scholar
- Mesquite Software Homepage, http://www.mesquite.com]]Google Scholar
- Data Engineering Bulletin Special Issue on Infrastructure for Advanced E-Services, 24(1), 2001]]Google Scholar
- A. Dogac, L. Kalinichenko, M. Tamer Ozsu, A. Sheth (eds.), Workflow Management Systems and Interoperability, NATO Advanced Study Institute, Springer, 1998]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Gillmann, R. Mindermann, G. Weikum, Benchmarking and Configuration of Workflow Management Systems, CoopIS, 2000]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Gillmann, J. Weissenfels, G. Weikum, A. Kraiss, Performance and Availability Assessment for the Configuration of Distributed Workflow Management Systems, EDBT, 2000]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- C. Hagen, G. Alonso, Highly Available Process Support Systems: Implementing Backup Mechanisms, SRDS, 1999]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Harel, E. Gery, Executable Object Modeling with Statecharts, IEEE Computer, 30(7), 1997]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- G. Haring, C. Lindemann, M. Reiser (Eds.), Performance Evaluation: Origins and Directions, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), Vol. 1769, Springer, 2000]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- IONA Technologies PLC, User Manuals of Orbix 2.3, 1997]]Google Scholar
- J. Klingemann, J. Waesch, K. Aberer, Deriving Service Models in Cross-Organizational Workflows, RIDE, 1999]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Kamath, G. Alonso, R. Günthör, C. Mohan, Providing High Availability in Very Large Workflow Management Systems, EDBT, 1996]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- A. Lazcano, G. Alonso, H. Schuldt, C. Schuler, The WISE approach to Electronic Commerce, Int'l. Journal of Computer Systems Science & Engineering, 15(5), 2000]]Google Scholar
- F. Leymann, D. Roller, Production Workflow, Prentice Hall, 1999]]Google Scholar
- P. Mills, C. Loosley, A Performance Analysis of 40 e-Business Web Sites, White Paper, Keynote Systems Inc., 2001]]Google Scholar
- H. D. Schwetmann, Model-based Systems Analysis Using CSIM18, WSC, 1998]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- G. Shegalov, M. Gillmann, G. Weikum, XML-enabled Workflow Management for E-Services across Heterogeneous Platforms, VLDB Journal Special Issue on E-Services, 10(1), Springer, 2001]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- H. Schuster, J. Neeb, R. Schamburger, A Configuration Management Approach for Large Workflow Management Systems, WACC, 1999]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. A. Sahner, K. S. Trivedi, A. Puliafito, Performance and Reliability Analysis of Computer Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- H. C. Tijms, Stochastic Models, John Wiley and Sons, 1994]]Google Scholar
- Transaction Processing Performance Council, http://www.tpc.org]]Google Scholar
- J. Weissenfels, M. Gillmann, O. Roth, G. Shegalov, W. Wonner, The Mentor-lite Prototype: A Light-Weight Workflow Management System, ICDE, California, 2000]]Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Workflow management with service quality guarantees
Recommendations
A Survey of Data-Intensive Scientific Workflow Management
Nowadays, more and more computer-based scientific experiments need to handle massive amounts of data. Their data processing consists of multiple computational steps and dependencies within them. A data-intensive scientific workflow is useful for ...
A distributed workflow management model for grid middleware
Best Papers from the GCC 2006 ConferenceWorkflow management enables grid service composition and user collaboration in grid middleware, it includes the workflow of grid service invoking and data exchanging among services. Because of the large requirements of grid service composition, it's ...
Grid-Enabled Workflow Management System Based On BPEL
A grid-enabled workflow management system provides a set of tools to facilitate building high-level grid application services by orchestrating low-level grid services. BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) is the de ...
Comments