The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 28, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 28, 1997
Jarir K Chaar, Tarrytown, NY (US);
Brent T Hailpern, Katonah, NY (US);
Edwin S Park, Middletown, NJ (US);
Santanu Paul, New York, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A mechanism for heterogeneous, peer-to-peer, and disconnected workflow execution across a network infrastructure. Performer Agent entities provide a homogeneous view of humans, applications, and heterogeneous workflow systems and components that act as Performers on the network by executing Tasks. Source Agent entities provide a homogeneous view of heterogeneous service requesters such as workflow scripts executing on different workflow systems, which generate Activities that need to execute on Performers as Tasks. Task Request and Task Response messages are used to standardize the communication between Source Agents and Performer Agents, along with other messages for controlling and queuing Tasks. Workflow systems interact with each other as peers using this mechanism by sending workflow execution requests, workflow script templates, and workflow execution environments to each other. Disconnected operation is handled by ensuring the continuous availability of Source Agents and Performer Agents on the network and providing a mechanism for Sources to disconnect from Source Agents and Performers to disconnect from Performer Agents.