Advanced transaction models in workflow contexts

In recent years, numerous transaction models have been proposed to address the problems posed by advanced database applications, but only a few of these models are being used in commercial products. In this paper, we make the case that such models may be too centered around databases to be useful in real environments. Advanced applications raise a variety of issues that are not addressed at all by transaction models. These same issues, however, are the basis for existing workflow systems, which are having considerable success as commercial products in spite of not having a solid theoretical foundation. We explore some of these issues and show that, in many aspects, workflow models are a superset of transaction models and have the added advantage of incorporating a variety of ideas that have so far remained outside the scope of traditional transaction processing.