A LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFYING CONSTRAINTS IN WFMSs

Abstract

Although there are some approaches to formally describe the authorization constraints, such as role-based access control models, they are not adequate to model such WFMSs' constraints. To address this issue, this paper analyzes the existing methods and proposes a workflow authorization constraints model which including an authorization specification language named RWAL (role-based workflow authorization language) used to specify both static and dynamic authorization constraints. Its basic elements, syntax and semantics are discussed. It is the expanded version of Bertino's and more intuitionistic. The expression power of the language is better than the Bertino's in that it can not only represent both static authorization constraints and dynamic authorization constraints but also can capture the historical information of authorizations.