Versioning for workflow evolution

Abstract

Scientists working in eScience environments often use workflows to carry out their computations. Since the workflows evolve as the research itself evolves, these workflows can be a tool for tracking the evolution of the research. Scientists can trace their research and associated results through time or even go back in time to a previous stage and fork to a new branch of research. In this paper we introduce the workflow evolution framework (EVF), which is demonstrated through implementation in the Trident workflow workbench. The primary contribution of the EVF is efficient management of knowledge associated with workflow evolution. Since we believe evolution can be used for workflow attribution, our framework will motivate researchers to share their workflows and get the credit for their contributions. Copyright 2010 ACM.