A practical method to analyze workflow logic models: Research Articles

  • Authors:

  • Yu Huang;Hanpin Wang;Wen Zhao;Chunxiang Xu

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China and National Engineering Center of Software Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;Dept. of Comp. Sci., Peking Univ., and Institute of Software, School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Sci., Peking Univ and Key Lab. of High Confidence Softw. Technol., Ministry of Ed., Pek ...;National Engineering Center of Software Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;Department of Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

  • Venue:
  • Concurrency and Computation: Practice & Experience
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

The analysis of workflow is crucial to the correctness of workflow applications. This paper introduces a simple and practical method for analyzing workflow logic models. Firstly, some definitions of the models and some properties, such as throughness, no-redundant-transition and boundedness, are presented. Then, we propose an approach based on synchronized reachability graphs (SRGs) to verify these properties. The SRG uses the characteristics of synchronizers in workflow logic models and mitigates the state explosion by constructing synchronized occurrence sequences rather than interleaving occurrence sequences. This paper also proposes some refined and feasible reduction rules which can preserve vital properties of workflow logic models. Using these two techniques, the SRG-based verification method can achieve higher efficiency. Furthermore, this research also develops a verification tool based on the method, presents the analysis results of some practical cases and compares our method with others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.