Work flow view of a distributed application

Abstract

Work Flow Management is a unified set of concepts for the definition, implementation and operation of Application Systems. A companion paper 1 to this one provides a more general treatment of the requirements motivating Work Flow Management. An Application System is a major function of the work of a computer system as perceived by the customer. Thus Application Systems often mirror the structure or work of the customer enterprise. In this paper we shall consider a credit card processing application, forming a major function of the work of the hypothetical Masterkey Credit Corporation (MCC). The portion of this application performed on the MCC distributed computer system is called the Credit-Cards Application System. MCC also uses its computer system for other applications, including personnel and payroll, financial information, and the development and maintenance of applications.