Method for fault handling in a co-operative workflow environment
First Claim
1. A computer storage medium readable by a computer tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by said computer to perform a method for fault handling in a co-operative workflow environment, said method comprising:
- employing a placement strategy for a transaction scope and associated fault handlers and compensation handlers across different workflow components;
employing a fault propagation scheme for forwarding a fault occurring in any of said workflow components to a fault handler;
employing a distributed data collection mechanism to facilitate recovery from said fault occurring in any said workflow component;
employing a fault recovery mechanism using compensation,wherein said transaction scope defines a transaction boundary and provides a fault handling and fault recovery context for a set of activities and a said transaction scope may be nested inside another transaction scope resulting in outer and inner scopes,wherein said cooperative workflow environment comprises a plurality of said workflow components deployed at different locations in a distributed infrastructure and working co-operatively with other components to complete an overall global task, andwherein said workflow components are adapted to perform one of;
exiting normally upon receipt of a completion control message; and
implementing said distributed data collection mechanism by appending data variables to a data collection message and sending the said data collection message to workflow components which are next in sequence in the control flow, wherein, upon receipt of the data collection message, said workflow components are adapted to perform one of;
exiting if said workflow components are non-root workflow components; and
waiting for a compensate control message or a no compensate control message if said workflow components are root workflow components.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Embodiments herein provide a fault-handling scheme based on forward recovery for cooperative workflow environments. The fault handling scheme relies on the correct placement of transaction scopes and their associated fault and compensation handlers for maintaining correct application semantics, a fault propagation scheme for forwarding faults to a workflow component that has the corresponding fault handler, and a distributed mechanism for collecting data of completed workflow components to facilitate recovering from faults. The fault handling scheme makes use of control flow messages to facilitate compensation of nested transaction scopes (residing in different components). The workflow components are also modified with additional code for aiding with fault propagation and fault recovery.
28 Citations
5 Claims
-
1. A computer storage medium readable by a computer tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by said computer to perform a method for fault handling in a co-operative workflow environment, said method comprising:
-
employing a placement strategy for a transaction scope and associated fault handlers and compensation handlers across different workflow components; employing a fault propagation scheme for forwarding a fault occurring in any of said workflow components to a fault handler; employing a distributed data collection mechanism to facilitate recovery from said fault occurring in any said workflow component; employing a fault recovery mechanism using compensation, wherein said transaction scope defines a transaction boundary and provides a fault handling and fault recovery context for a set of activities and a said transaction scope may be nested inside another transaction scope resulting in outer and inner scopes, wherein said cooperative workflow environment comprises a plurality of said workflow components deployed at different locations in a distributed infrastructure and working co-operatively with other components to complete an overall global task, and wherein said workflow components are adapted to perform one of; exiting normally upon receipt of a completion control message; and implementing said distributed data collection mechanism by appending data variables to a data collection message and sending the said data collection message to workflow components which are next in sequence in the control flow, wherein, upon receipt of the data collection message, said workflow components are adapted to perform one of; exiting if said workflow components are non-root workflow components; and waiting for a compensate control message or a no compensate control message if said workflow components are root workflow components. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
-
Specification