Towards adaptable workflow management system: Shark enhydra

Abstract

Workflow activities may have due-dates to facilitate timely services and maximum use of resources like time. Due-dates (which are very critical in business) may pass before the intended participants can view their respective tasks because some environments lack necessary bandwidth and the administrator may not be aware of it. This paper presents a solution to this problem by designing and developing an agent-based plug-in that informs workflow administrators about connectivity status to a workflow server. The plug-in comprises three agents which will interface with system through Common Object Request Broker. Agents are employed in the design and implementation of the plug-in to capitalize on the current design in that Shark Enhydra is employing the same agent-based technology. The three collaborating agents (together forming a sub-system) shall persistently be communicating with each other through remote procedure calls (RPC) only if there is network connection and communicate with the workflow system through CORBA architecture. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.