Exception handling in distributed workflow systems using mobile agents

Abstract

Workflow management systems (WfMSs) are software systems used to automate, coordinate and streamline business processes of organizations. Most existing research on WfMSs has been focused on workflows based on well-structured and well-behaved business processes. Although its importance has been recognized, only recently, modeling and handling of workflow exceptions has been tackled by the workflow community. In this paper, we propose a mobile agent based approach to handling exceptions in distributed workflow management systems. Mobile agents are dispatched to find out the status of running processes in the system to keep track and troubleshoot them when necessary. We describe the classification of workflow exceptions into hierarchical levels and the corresponding design of different types of exception-handling mobile agents and their cooperation. A prototype of the mobile agent-based workflow exception handling mechanism has been implemented using the IBM Aglet platform.