Open workflow infrastructure: A research agenda

While current Distributed Computation Platforms (DCPs) provide environments for composition and enactment of distributed applications, a comprehensive methodology and tool that facilitates open, generic and rapid development, sharing and utilization of distributed applications represented through the workflow methodology, is still missing. The goal is to incorporate workflow editing, sharing and enactment capabilities directly into the Internet, thus making distributed applications available and usable in a wide range of pervasive settings. In this position paper, we outline a research agenda to build such an infrastructure with a flexible design to work on an Internet-wide scale. Research and technology development activities are intended to address the following end-user needs: (1) abstracting individual DCPs so that end-users can use common interfaces, (2) allowing rapid customization of the distributed process, (3) sharing processes, lessons and features from distributed applications across the community and (4) incorporating security and provenance framework.