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Innovation and Future of Enterprise Information Systems pp 201–215Cite as

Towards a Framework and Platform for Mobile, Distributed Workflow Enactment Services on a Possible Future of ERP Infrastructure

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation ((LNISO,volume 4))

Abstract

In this paper we represent a workflow management system architecture that realizes a sweet spot between the robustness of a centralized master workflow management enactment service and the flexibility of distributed disconnected workflow management services. The architecture emerged in a concrete scenario with the requirement that traveling business agents can proceed working with their supporting enterprise application even if they are disconnected from the Internet and therefore disconnected from their enterprise IT infrastructure. So far, the solution deals with the data and workflow state facets of the problem and appropriate data and workflow state synchronization are key characteristics of the solution. On the visionary side, the realized architecture can be turned into a general framework for robust distributed workflow-based systems. Such architecture will generalize the central workflow enactment service to become a hub for distributing not only data and workflow state but also the mobile code that makes up the enterprise application. Then, the crucial element of such an architecture will be a sandbox virtual machine for the distributed slaves that interplay in data, workflow, and code synchronization.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Today’s System i.

  2. 2.

    Today’s i5OS.

  3. 3.

    The PreVolution project was granted 2nd place of the GC (Gesundheitscluster Österreich—Healthcare Cluster Austria) Genius Award—research and development category—in 2009.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks go to the PreVolution team at SCCH (Software Competence Center Hagenberg GmbH) and the team at AUVA. The PreVolution project was approx. a 35 person year effort. Crucial parts of the PreVolution project, i.e., approx. a third, have been funded by the FFG (Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft Österreich—Research Funds Agency Austria).The publication has been partly written within the project “VerticalModel Integration (VMI)” which is supported within the program “Regionale Wettbewerbsf¨ahigkeit OÖ 2007–2013” by the European Fund for Regional Development as well as the State of Upper Austria. This work was further supported in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under grant no. TRP 223-N23.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Linz, Linz, Austria

    Dagmar Auer & Josef Küng

  2. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Dirk Draheim

  3. Software Competence Center Hagenberg, Hagenberg, Austria

    Verena Geist, Theodorich Kopetzky & Christine Natschläger

Authors
  1. Dagmar Auer
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  2. Dirk Draheim
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  3. Verena Geist
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  4. Theodorich Kopetzky
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  5. Josef Küng
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  6. Christine Natschläger
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dagmar Auer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Strategic Management,, Marketing and Tourism, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstr. 15, Innsbruck, 5020, Austria

    Felix Piazolo

  2. , Institute of Computer Science, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 21a, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria

    Michael Felderer

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Auer, D., Draheim, D., Geist, V., Kopetzky, T., Küng, J., Natschläger, C. (2013). Towards a Framework and Platform for Mobile, Distributed Workflow Enactment Services on a Possible Future of ERP Infrastructure. In: Piazolo, F., Felderer, M. (eds) Innovation and Future of Enterprise Information Systems. Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 4. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37021-2_16

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