Overview of technologies applied to implement the distributed workflow management system

Distributed workflow management is a concept relative to the earlier centralized workflow management. The distribution of workflow management is divided into three levels: the distribution of the architecture of workflow system, the distribution of workflow engines, and the distribution of workflow definition. This article briefly presents the involved key technologies to implement distributed enactment of workflow engines. Then, by comparison and analysis of several typical projects and prototypes Exotica, EVE, DartFlow and METEOR2, the article mainly discusses the advantages and drawbacks of these technologies, and a prospect of research on future distributed workflow technology.