Title: Context-aware scientific workflow systems using KEPLER

Authors: Anne H.H. Ngu, Arwa Jamnagarwala, George Chin Jr., Chandrika Sivaramakrishnan, Terence Critchlow

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Texas State University – San Marcos, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, Texas 78666, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, Texas State University – San Marcos, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, Texas 78666, USA. ' Computational Sciences and Mathematics Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Boulevard, Richland, Washington 99352, USA. ' Computational Sciences and Mathematics Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Boulevard, Richland, Washington 99352, USA. ' Computational Sciences and Mathematics Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Boulevard, Richland, Washington 99352, USA

Abstract: Data intensive scientific workflows are often modelled using a dataflow-oriented model. The simplicity of a dataflow model facilitates intuitive workflow design, analysis and optimisation. However, some amount of control flow modelling is often necessary for engineering fault tolerant, robust and adaptive workflows. In scientific domain, myriads of environment information are needed for controlling different stages of execution. Modelling the control flow using inherent dataflow constructs will quickly result in a workflow that is hard to comprehend, reuse and maintain. In this paper, we propose a context-aware architecture for scientific workflows. By incorporating contexts within a dataflow-oriented scientific workflow system, we enable the development of context-aware scientific workflows without the need to use numerous low level control flow actors. This approach results in a workflow that is aware of its environment during execution with minimal user input and that responds intelligently based on such awareness at runtime. A further advantage of our approach is that the defined contexts can be reused and shared across other workflows. We demonstrate our approach with two prototype implementations of context-aware actors in KEPLER.

Keywords: context-aware workflow; scientific workflow architecture; context modelling; context management; context awareness; scientific workflows.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPIM.2010.033172

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 2010 Vol.5 No.1, pp.18 - 31

Published online: 10 May 2010 *

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