Temporal Exception Prediction for Loops in Resource Constrained Concurrent Workflows

Abstract

Workflow management systems (WfMS) are widely used for improving business processes and providing better quality of services. However, rapid changes in business environment can cause exceptions in WfMS leading to deadline violation and other consequences. In these circumstances, one of the crucial tasks for a workflow administrator is to detect any potential exceptions as early as possible so that corrective measures can be taken. However such detections can be extremely complex since a workflow process may consist of various control flow pattern and each pattern has its own way of influencing temporal properties of a task. In this paper, we describe a novel approach for predicting temporal exceptions for loops in concurrent workflows which are required to share limited identical resources. Our approach is divided into two phases; preparation phase and prediction phase. In the preparation phase, temporal and resource constraints are calculated for each task within the workflow schema. In the prediction phase, an algorithm is used to predict potential deadline violations by taking into account constraints calculated from the preparation phase.