XFlow

XFlow is a basis for building collaborative applications as well as integrating processes across an enterprise. XFlow has a small footprint but is extremely powerful. XFlow is designed to be easy to use from the development, deployment and management standpoints.

XFlow runs within an EJB and servlet container. JBoss 4.0 (with bundled Tomcat) is the container used in this implementation. The architecture supports distributed and parallel processes within an organization's firewall as well as across organizational boundaries.

XFlow is designed for scalability, extensibility and ease of integration with security models and legacy processes. XFlow's service-oriented architecture supports both a simple Java API as well as a web-service (SOAP/HTTP) interface.

Any application or component may be a participant process in XFlow. A participant process is associated with a specific node in a workflow graph.

A process receives work items from the XFlow server in its inbox, performs work on the item and returns the item back to the server for routing to other participant processes.

Processes communicate with the XFlow server via a client API or via web-services. Examples of participant processes can be any one of the following: � A Java application � A JSP � A servlet � An EJB � A non-Java application (e.g. .NET application

Here are some key features of "XFlow ":

￭ Executes and manages workflows across local and distributed processes. ￭ Enables process collaboration within a workflow. ￭ Support for n-level workflow hierarchies. ￭ Rule-based routing of work items ￭ Work items may be Java objects or XML ￭ Parallel flows ￭ Meta-data can be associated with work items. ￭ Meta-data can be associated with a process definition. ￭ Versioning of workflow models ￭ Synchronous and Asynchronous interfaces ￭ Ability to view workflow states anytime, anywhere. ￭ Pluggable authentication/authorization security modules ￭ Event publishing

Requirements:

￭ JBoss 4.0 with bundled Tomcat (comes included in the archive)