Semantics of reactive components in event-driven workflow execution

Abstract

The exact semantics of workflows and involved processing entities is an open yet urgent problem. This paper considers the semantics and correctness of event-driven workflow execution. The basis for the formalization in our approach is provided by an event history which records all events that have occurred during the execution of workflows. Workflows are executed by reactive components which operate on top of that history. Based on the history it is possible to determine the semantics of these reactive components (and consequently, the semantics of workflows) as well as to check whether their observable behavior is correct.