Distributed Process Tracking via WS-PT Intermediary
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In distributed business processes, clients lack visibility into the progress and status of processes executed on other systems, receiving only success or failure notifications without detailed reasons for failures, making it difficult to track and manage complex transactions across multiple orchestration environments and process engines.
Innovation Solution
A system for distributed business process tracking that enables clients to subscribe to notifications from providers, using a Web-Service-Process Tracking Protocol (WS-PT) to receive and correlate status updates, allowing clients to track the progress and status of distributed business processes across heterogeneous systems.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If distributed business processes are executed across multiple orchestration environments and process engines, then the ability to perform complex transactions is improved, but the visibility and trackability of process progress deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a process tracking service as an intermediary component that receives process execution updates from multiple orchestration environments and process engines, and relays status information to clients. This mediator consolidates information from heterogeneous systems, making the distributed process execution transparent and trackable without requiring clients to directly interface with each system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where process execution status is continuously reported back to clients through standardized notifications. The tracking service monitors process progress and provides real-time feedback about intermediate states, successes, and failures, enabling clients to track distributed processes across multiple systems.
2Reliability
If process tracking information is collected from multiple systems, then the completeness of process status information is improved, but the complexity of the tracking system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The process tracking service is designed as a universal system that can handle multiple types of process engines and orchestration environments through standardized interfaces. It provides multi-functional capabilities including status collection, normalization, storage, and notification delivery, reducing the need for separate tracking mechanisms for each system while maintaining complete process status information.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies homogeneity by standardizing the interface and data format for process status information across different orchestration environments and process engines. All systems communicate through a common protocol with standardized message structures, simplifying the tracking system architecture while ensuring complete and consistent process status information is collected from all sources.
3Loss of information
If detailed notifications are sent to clients about process progress, then the transparency of distributed processes is improved, but the amount of communication overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking service merges multiple status updates and notifications from different process engines into consolidated communication streams. By combining related notifications and batching updates where appropriate, the system maintains full transparency of distributed processes while reducing the total volume of communication overhead compared to sending separate notifications from each system directly to clients.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for distributed business process tracking includes a client adapted to receive a first notification and a second notification, a first provider adapted to perform a distributed business process using a first process, generate a first notification based on the first process, and send the first notification to the client, a second provider adapted to perform a distributed business process using a second process, generate a second notification based on the second process, and send the second notification to the client, and wherein the first provider sends the first notification to the client independently of the second provider or the first provider sends the first notification to the client using the second provider.