An integrated time management model for distributed workflow management systems in Grid environments

Abstract

AbstractMulti‐granularity of time and time zone difference are two aspects of a time management model (TMM) for distributed workflow management system (DWfS). There are some recent literatures concerning each of them. However, current researches on DWfS have not put them together but have built up an integrated model. As business and scientific collaboration processes across continents become more and more frequent, it is increasingly important to build an integrated model to take them as a whole to make the time transformation and temporal verification in collaboration processes easy and efficient. Aiming at solving this problem, an integrated TMM, DWfS‐TMM, is proposed in this paper. The DWfS‐TMM model consists of a set of general time ontology and a set of general rules for unified transformation between different time zones and different time granularity units. The representation of build‐time and run‐time temporal constraints in workflow processes and the temporal consistency checking method in this model is investigated. Finally, a real case study is investigated and it is shown from this case study that the presented model is useful and practicable. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.