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TRANSCRIPT
US005960404A
Ulllted States Patent [19] [11] Patent Number: 5,960,404 Chaar et al. [45] Date of Patent: Sep. 28, 1999
[54] MECHANISM FOR HETEROGENEOUS, FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS PEER-TO-PEER, AND DISCONNECTED 197 12 946 WORKFLOW OPERATION A1 12/1997 Germany .
[75] Inventors: J arir K. Chaar, TarrytoWn; Brent T. WO 97/07472 2/1997 WIPO ' Ha?pern, Katonah, both of NY; Primary Examiner—James R. Trammell Edwin s. Park, MiddletoWn, N.J.; Assistant Examiner—cuong H- Nguyen Santanu Paul, New York, NY Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Scully, Scott, Murphy & Presser;
Kevin M. Jordan, Esq. [73] Assignee: International Business Machines [57] ABSTRACT
C0rp., Armonk, NY. A mechanism for heterogeneous, peer-to-peer, and discon
[21] App]' No; 08/919,838 nected Work?oW execution across a network infrastructure. _ Performer Agent entities provide a homogeneous vieW of
[22] Flled: Aug- 28’ 1997 humans, applications, and heterogeneous Work?oW systems [51] Int. Cl? ............................. .. G06F 17/60; G06F 9/44 and Components that act as Performers on the network by
[52] US. Cl. ................................... .. 705/8- 705/9- 705/11 executing Tasks" Source Agent entities Provide a homoge' 707/104 3é5/672f395/67i neous view of heterogeneous service requesters such as
[58] Field of Search ’ 705/; 8 9 1 Work?oW scripts executing on different Work?oW systems, 705/10 3_67%_ $0771’ WhlCh generate Activities that need to execute on Performers
’ ’ ’ 160 101 1’03 104; as Tasks. Task Request and Task Response messages are ’ ’ ’ used to standardize the communication between Source
[56] References Cited Agents and Performer Agents, along With other messages for controlling and queuing Tasks. Work?oW systems interact
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS With each other as peers using this mechanism by sending Work?oW execution requests, Work?oW script templates,
"""""""""""""" and Work?oW execution environments to each other. Dis
5’721’913 2/1998 Ackm? et a1‘ ' ~~~~ n 707/103 connected operation is handled by ensuring the continuous 5:8O2:493 9/1998 She/HOtt et aL __ _____ __ 705/1 availability of Source Agents and Performer Agents on the 5,809,265 9/1998 Blair et a] 345/339 netWork and providing a mechanism for Sources to discon 5,819,263 10/1998 Bromley et a1 _____ __ 705/3 nect from Source Agents and Performers to disconnect from 5,826,020 10/1998 Randell ...... .. 395/200.32 Performer Agents. 5,826,239 10/1998 Du et al . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 705/8
5,828,375 10/1998 Nomura et a1. ....................... .. 345/339 48 Claims, 25 Drawing Sheets
1 O 230 I30 260 1 O
k l 1:0 g g Activity ,L P f 5 er ormer
Source Aoguergf 150 11810 Agent Performer A
‘—_—J 115 Tusk Response __> Tusk Request 135 , ‘
Tusk Response Task Request
3 S 150 140
Network
1%)0 160 T k R Task Response as equesi
/ 230 > Tusk Requesl I 5 I30 260 1 O
100 115 Tusk Response <——
Ac?vify K 140 Performer Performer Source 160 Agent
Source Agent |______ ___| '
110
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