Dynamic workflow composition using Markov decision processes

Abstract

The advent of Web services has made automated workflow composition relevant to Web based applications. One technique, that has received some attention, for automatically composing workflows is AI-based classical planning. However, classical planning suffers from the paradox of first assuming deterministic behavior of Web services, then requiring the additional overhead of execution monitoring to recover from unexpected behavior of services. To address these concerns, we propose using Markov decision processes (MDPs), to model workflow composition. Our method models both, the inherent stochastic nature of Web services, and the dynamic nature of the environment. The resulting workflows are robust to nondeterministic behaviors of Web services and adaptive to a changing environment. Using an example scenario, we demonstrate our method and provide empirical results in its support.