Abstract
For a data element concurrently accessed by multiple threads or stored at different locations, improper data operations will cause its values to be inconsistent. This could damage the correctness of workflow systems. Limited by modeling method, most existing researches can only discuss this issue in the process data layer or the persistent data layer. And workflow nets with tables (WFT-nets) is a kind formal and conceptual model that is good at modeling data-flow from the both data layers. We opt for it to model workflow systems and detect inconsistent data. Firstly, based on the concepts of concurrency, data log and shared attribute, the error of data inconsistency is defined from the perspective of data value. Furthermore, a data refining strategy that is suitable for revealing data inconsistency is proposed. And then the reachable configuration graph (RC-graph) of a WFT-net can be constructed. Traversing it, all errors of data inconsistency can be checked. Finally, a set of comparative experiments shows the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Highlights
In a workflow system, data-flow design flaws such as improper data operations can lead to the error of data inconsistency, even if it is free of deadlock and livelock [1]
We introduce the reachability of WFT-nets
For the WFT-net shown in Fig. 1, we give a data refining strategy for each d as follows: if there exist several predicates w.r.t. d that can be defined after writing d, the refined value set Vd can make each of such predicates true and false respectively; if not, Vd contains a value of d whether or not it is rewritten
Summary
Data-flow design flaws such as improper data operations can lead to the error of data inconsistency, even if it is free of deadlock and livelock [1]. We can solve this issue from the source forward: from the model perspective, an appropriate one is needed to describe overall control-/data-flow and their interactions; from the detection perspective, all possible business cases should be considered These bring new challenges: it requires more elaborate temporal logic to present the actual state evolution of systems [20], and it requires a valid method to dispose unbounded data [21]. In the previous work [22], a formal model called workflow nets with tables (WFT-nets) is proposed It considers control-flow and data-flow (i.e., process data and persistent data), and the various interactions between the control-flow and/or data-flow. We utilize WFT-nets to model business processes and detect whether they have the error of data inconsistency. The WFT-net is grounded on WFD-nets [23] and data schema [24]
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