Component-based systems, composite applications and workflow-management

Rainer Schmidt

FZI Karlsruhe, DBS
Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14
76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Tel: (49) 721 9654 -733
Fax: (49) 721 9654 -709
email: rschmidt@fzi.de

Abstract:

Although workflow-management-systems offer a highly suitable basis for business process reengineering, they are rarely used enterprise-wide. One reason is the performance deficiencies due to limited scalability and unreliability, which are caused by an inappropriate, centralized architecture. The other reasons are the incapability of wfms to work in highly heterogeneous environments and their lack of interoperability with legacy applications. Both are caused by the underlying software architecture which improperly supports the cooperation of independently developed software units and their evolution over time. The latter problem can be solved by component-based systems. Furthermore, component-based frameworks like JavaBeans or ActiveX support the cooperation of components even in distributed and heterogeneous environments. They also provide numerous technologies for integrating legacy applications and data. However, the problem of poor performance and reliability remains unsolved. Therefore a new wfms-architecture has been developed. It uses so-called composite applications consisting of components bound together in an application document and cooperating over events. This architecture allows the distributed processing of workflows in distributed and heterogeneous environments, and thus enables the enterprise-wide use of wfms.