Journal of KIISE:Databases (한국정보과학회논문지:데이타베이스)

Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers (한국정보과학회)
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A Fresh Look on Workflow and Workflow Management System

워크플로우 및 워크플로우 관리 시스템의 새로운 조망

  • 한동수 (한국정보통신대학원 공학부) ;
  • 심재용 (한국정보통신대학원 공학부)
  • Published : 2001.09.01
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Abstract

In this paper, we analyze workflow management system in programming language aspects. Many workflow characteristics such as workflow relevant data, workflow control structures, and workflow application invocations are studied and compared with those of distributed parallel programs. Although there exist minor differences between them, we found that there exist surprisingly many analogies between them. Based on this observation, we suggest to view workflow management system as distributed parallel program development platform. This new view on workflow management system provides users consistent view on workflow and workflow management system and with this view workflow management system designer can cope with arbitrary requests from the users keeping design consistency. Moreover the analogy between workflow and program provides a basis to apply program analysis techniques to the analysis of workflow.

본 논문에서는 워크플로우와 워크플로우 관리 시스템을 프로그래밍 언어 관점에서 분석하였다. 워크플로우 관련 데이터, 워크플로우 제어 구조 그리고 응용 프로그램 기동 등 많은 워크플로우 특성이 분산 병렬 프로그램의 해당 항목과 비교되었다. 그 결과 비록 사소한 차이는 존재하였지만 놀랍게도 그들간에는 많은 유사성이 존재함을 확인할 수 있었다. 이러한 관찰에 근거하여 본 논문에서는 워크플로우 관리 시스템을 분산 병렬 프로그램 개발 플랫폼으로 조망하는 것을 제안하였다. 워크플로우 관리 시스템에 관한 이러한 새로운 조망을 통하여 워크플로우 시스템 사용자는 보다 일관성 있는 관점에서 워크플로우를 바라볼 수 있으며 워크플로우 관리 시스템 설계자는 워크플로우 시스템 설계의 일관성을 유지하면서 워크플로우 시스템에 대한 다양한 요구에 대응할 수 있게 된다. 또한 본 논문에서 제시한 워크플로우와 프로그램의 유사성은 워크플로우와 관련된 많은 분석 기법의 개발에 이미 개발된 프로그램 분석기법을 원용 할 수 있는 논리적 기반을 제공한다.

Keywords

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