**Workflow Technologies**

Patrick McConnell

Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center

Last updated: 12/1/2004 by Patrick McConnell

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  **Technology/standard:**   Web Services Choreography Interface (WSCI) (Moses)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Not a workflow language per say, but instead
                             exposes the observable behavior of a web services
                             system and implements a workflow. There is support
                             for connectors between services, looping,
                             conditionals, exception handling, transactions,
                             thread management, and dynamic participation
                             (service discovery).

  **Implementation:**        No
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| **Techn           | Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)       |
| ology/standard:** | (Shannon)                                        |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| **URL:**          |                                                  |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| **Description:**  | A true workflow language that models visibly     |
|                   | external behavior. There is support for invoking |
|                   | services, looping, variables, conditionals,      |
|                   | fault handling, service correlation, and         |
|                   | transactions. Dynamic service discovery is       |
|                   | missing from the specification.                  |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| **                | Proprietary from IBM                             |
| Implementation:** |                                                  |
|                   | Proprietary from Oracle                          |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) (WfMOpen)
                             (Steve)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Workflow language and implementation that is
                             generic but with much support for web services. The
                             standard defines 5 interfaces: Process definition
                             interchange (XPDL), Workflow Client Application
                             Programming Interface, Invoked Applications,
                             Interoperability, and Audit Data Specification.

  **Implementation:**        Yes
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Taverna (Moses)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Open source project designed specifically to build
                             workflows for bioinformatics. There is built-in
                             support for web services, local Java functions,
                             BioMoby, and Soaplab. The workflow language
                             (XScufl) is completely proprietary, and the
                             implementation is still in the beta release cycle.
                             There is currently little support for passing
                             complex XML parameters and XML transformations.

  **Implementation:**        Graphical client as part of the Taverna project
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Web Service for Bioinformatic Analysis Workflow
                             (WSBAW)\
                             Bioinformatics Workflow Builder Interface (BioWBI)
                             (Vinay)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           New IBM project aimed at workflow implementation
                             for bioinformatics. There is support for iteration,
                             recursion, pipes, and conditionals. However,
                             everything is proprietary. BioWBI is a web-based
                             graphical client for building these workflows. The
                             workflow language is proprietary.

  **Implementation:**        Typical IBM proprietary closed-source
                             implementations
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   GeneBeans

  **URL:**                   Dataflow engine with graphical front-end.
                             Database-oriented with no support for web services.

  **Description:**           

  **Implementation:**        Yes by UNC at Wilmington
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Pegasus (Shannon)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Scientific workflow engine with an grid-based
                             implementation. Integrates with Chimera (data
                             derivation), Condor (grid task engine), and MCS
                             (metadata catalogue service). The workflow language
                             is proprietary, but has been applied to
                             bioinformatics.

  **Implementation:**        Yes
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Pegasys (Nick)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Workflow for sequence analysis (alignments, gene
                             prediction, RNA gene detection, repeat masking,
                             sequence formatting, etc.). It is a client-server
                             application with a proprietary workflow language.
                             The project is aimed at high-performance computing
                             needs.

  **Implementation:**        Yes -- UBC Bioinformatics Center
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Kepler (Patrick)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Kepler is based on the UC Berkely Ptolemy II
                             project. It is an open-source solution that can
                             integrate grid services. The proprietary workflow
                             language is called MoML. It claims to be a
                             cross-project collaboration between Ptolemy II,
                             Vergil (graphics), and others.

  **Implementation:**        Yes
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   DiscoveryNet (Nick)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           The proprietary workflow language is called
                             Discovery Process Markup Language (DPML), and the
                             engine integrates with Globus. There appears to be
                             a wide range of data types used by the system.

  **Implementation:**        ?
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Triana (Vinay)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Triana is a scientific workflow system that is
                             middle-ware agnostic. There is current support for
                             web services, JXTA, local services, grid services,
                             and P2P services. It claims to support BPEL and
                             WSFL. The architecture is pluggable and there is a
                             graphical client. Data types are checked between
                             service invocations.

  **Implementation:**        Yes -- open source
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Scientific Process Automation (SPA)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           A scientific workflow with proprietary languages:
                             Abstract Workflow (AWF) and Executable Workflow
                             (EWF). There is support for web services and a
                             graphical client.

  **Implementation:**        ?
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Piper

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Wraps command-line programs and can access web
                             services. This project is somewhat dead.

  **Implementation:**        Yes
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   Panther Informatics Analysis Workflow System (PAWS)
                             (Steve)

  **URL:**                   

  **Description:**           Bioinformatics-oriented workflow engine with GUI
                             support. There is support for web services, local
                             Java invocation, command-line tools, and more.

  **Implementation:**        Open source soon
  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
  **Technology/standard:**   GridAnt (Sal)

  **URL:**                   http://www-unix.globus.org/cog/projects/gridant/

  **Description:**           Models simple workflows via the ant utility. This
                             is not a replacement for a full-featured workflow
                             language.

  **Implementation:**        Open source
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