Patent ID: 7475275
Filing Date: 2009-01-06
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for fault handling in a co-operative workflow environment 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 a 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 a fault recovery context for a set of activities and 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, when employing said fault recovery mechanism using said compensation, the root workflow component of a scope sends a compensate control message to root workflow components of all said inner scopes for which fault recovery has to be initiated, and said root workflow component of said scope sends a no compensate control message to root workflow components of all said inner scopes for which no said fault recovery has to be done; and exiting normally by said root workflow components upon receipt of said no compensate control message, and initiating said fault recovery using said compensation handlers upon receipt of said compensate control message from the root workflow component of an immediate outer scope.