WORKFLOW EXECUTION PLANS THROUGH COMPLETION CONDITION CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS

• US 20090158289A1
• Filed: 12/18/2007
• Published: 06/18/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shukla, Dharma, Toub, Stephen
• Granted Patent: US 8,108,868 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/506 Constraint
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups

Abstract

Optimizing workflow execution. A method includes identifying a completion condition. The completion condition is specified as part of the overall workflow. The method further includes identifying a number of activities that could be executed to satisfy the completion condition. One or more activities from the number of activities is ordered into an execution plan and assigned system resources based on an analysis of activities in the number of activities and the completion condition.

Claims

1. In a computing environment comprising a workflow runtime, a method of optimizing workflow execution, the method comprising:

identifying a completion condition, wherein the completion condition is specified as part of the overall workflow;

identifying a plurality of activities that could be executed to satisfy the completion condition;

ordering one or more activities from the plurality of activities into an execution plan and assigning system resources based on an analysis of activities in the plurality of activities and the completion condition.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein an analysis of activities comprises identifying a priority assigned by a developer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein an analysis of activities comprises an analysis of system resources.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein analyzing system resources comprises identifying hardware optimized for a particular activity.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein analyzing system resources comprises identifying an activity optimized for hardware in a computing system where the workflow is executing.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein an analysis of activities comprises an analysis of activities in a workflow that have already executed.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein an analysis of activities comprises an analysis of feedback received from activities that have executed or are executing in a workflow.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein an analysis of activities comprises an estimation of time to execute one or more activities.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the estimation of time to execute one or more activities is based on historical data.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the estimation of time to execute one or more activities is based on feedback from one or more activities.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the estimation of time to execute one or more activities is based on developer estimate data provided by a developer of an activity.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein ordering activities and assigning resources comprises re-ordering previously ordered activities in the execution plan and reassigning previously assigned resources.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein re-ordering previously ordered activities and reassigning previously assigned resources comprises removing a previously ordered activity from the execution plan and un-assigning resources associated with the activity.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein an analysis of activities comprises an analysis of Boolean propositional satisfyability using activities already executed.

15. In a computing environment comprising a workflow runtime, a system including programmatic modules configured to optimize workflow execution, the system comprising:

a processor;

a computer readable memory medium comprising computer executable instructions, the computer executable instruction comprising functional modules including;

an analysis module, wherein the analysis module is configured to identify a completion condition, where the completion condition is specified as part of an overall workflow and to identify a plurality of activities that could be executed to satisfy the completion condition; and

a scheduling module configured to order one or more activities from the plurality of activities into an execution plan and assign system resources based on an analysis of activities in the plurality of activities and the completion condition.

16. In a computing environment comprising a workflow runtime, a computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions configured to optimize workflow execution, the computer readable medium comprising:

computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor are configured to perform a critical path analysis based on one or more completion conditions for a workflow to identify an optimized set of activities that when executed would satisfy one or more of the completion conditions; and

computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor are configured to order the optimized set of activities into an execution plan and assign system resources based the execution plan.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor are configured to analyze feedback from executing activities and to modify the execution plan according to the feedback.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor are configured to perform a critical path analysis, are configured to evaluate system hardware that the workflow will be executing on.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor are configured to evaluate data provided by a developer of an activity.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor are configured to evaluate activities in a workflow that have already executed.