OpenWFE - other workflow formalisms and engines

Hi All,

I must say, I really like the looks of OpenWFE.  It certainly is a  
worthy alternative to Taverna and Kepler - though each provide  
specific advantages and disadvantages.  I endorse Joanne's request  
for some guidance on what the pros & cons are here.

One question worth asking in this context is which best supports the  
use of semantic web tech as a means of using formal semantic  
knowledge to navigate decision trees and modify run-time algorithmic  
parameters in the workflow?

I really have no idea myself, but I'd expect there are others on this  
list who could answer that question in some detail.

There are a few other workflow formalisms in use in the world beyond  
life sciences that can be useful to be aware of.

Some of these may in fact underlie OpenWFE and Taverna.  I've not had  
the chance to dig into this yet, either, but I'm certain there are  
others on this list who can tell us.

Some may also not have survived the e-business process debates of  
several years back - or the more recent re-orientation toward SOA,  
though I do believe most of these are in use in fairly large  
application spaces.

Web Services Flow Language (WSFL)
http://xml.coverpages.org/wsfl.html

Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS)
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/specification/ws-bpel/

or it's more recent SOA-informed decendent - WS-BPEL 2.0
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/specification/ws- 
bpelsubproc/

GRID Services Flow Language (GSFL) - built on OGSA and, therefore,  
quite compatible with the Globus libraries
http://www-unix.globus.org/cog/projects/workflow/

e-Business Process ML (ebPML)
http://www.ebpml.org/

On the BIRN project, we've been using workflow engines to help  
leverage GRID resources for high-throughput, large-scale brain image  
data processing tasks - e.g.,:

Condor
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/

Kepler
http://kepler-project.org/

(see also Kepler's parent project - Ptolemy)
http://ptolemy.berkeley.edu/


There are also the two following community sites worth checking out,  
though they have a distinct bent toward the commercial sector:

The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)
http://www.wfmc.org/

Workflow Management Systems yellow pages
http://www.ifs.uni-linz.ac.at/ifs/staff/kramler/wfms.html

Cheers,
Bill

On Jul 18, 2006, at 1:39 PM, jluciano@predmed.com wrote:

>
> Hi Chimezie,
>
> Thanks for sending the information about OpenWFE.  Do you know how  
> OpenWFE compares to Taverna?  I've been using Taverna (just a  
> little) so far for some exploratory work in Diabetes.
>
> Joanne
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Chimezie Ogbuji [mailto:ogbujic@bio.ri.ccf.org]
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 12:04 PM
>> To: 'w3c semweb hcls'
>> Subject: Re: HCLS-ACPP Tcon today
>>
>>
>> I've added links for OpenWFE's Workflow Patterns (as well as
>> the XML schema it uses to represent workflow patterns) to the
>> ACPPTaskForce Wiki. Part of the task objectives on the ACPP wiki  
>> includes
>> collecting core vocabularies for expressing workflow modeling
>> constructs. There are many well established patterns in this field  
>> that
>> could be captured in an RDF/OWL vocabulary for use with pathway and
>> protocol decision making.
>>
>> One of the immediate advantages (in this case)
>> of using a XML dialect (that could be mapped to such a
>> vocabulary directly), is in using pre-existing workflow management  
>> tools (such
>> as OpenWFE's web-based editor) to construct a workflow document. The
>> existing ER Stroke Management usecase could be modelled this way.
>>
>> OpenWFE is an open source workflow engine.
>>
>> * http://demo.openwfe.org/droflo/ [Droflo Demo]
>>
>> Chimezie Ogbuji
>> Lead Systems Analyst
>> Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
>> Cleveland Clinic Foundation
>> 9500 Euclid Avenue/ W26
>> Cleveland, Ohio 44195
>> Office: (216)444-8593
>> ogbujic@ccf.org
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Bill Bug
Senior Analyst/Ontological Engineer

Laboratory for Bioimaging  & Anatomical Informatics
www.neuroterrain.org
Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy
Drexel University College of Medicine
2900 Queen Lane
Philadelphia, PA    19129
215 991 8430 (ph)
610 457 0443 (mobile)
215 843 9367 (fax)


Please Note: I now have a new email - William.Bug@DrexelMed.edu







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