Supervising Remote Task Execution in Collaborative Workflow Environments

Abstract:
A key problem of collaborative workflows is the - sometimes questionable - assumption that remote tasks will be executed as agreed on before. In order to enforce compliance to given requirements, evidence of the correct execution of a remote task has to be produced. However, participants of inter-organizational workflows are autonomous and information about their private business processes is often (intentionally) unavailable to service consumers. This contribution identifies and discusses distinct levels and approaches to enforce the correct execution of tasks which are executed remotely. In addition to that, specific supervising mechanisms are presented, which are able to create evidence of correct execution while preserving the autonomy of participating business partners. Finally, the identified mechanisms are integrated into a flexible architecture to support monitoring and controlling of remote services.