Optimizing resource conflicts in workflow management systems

Resource allocation and scheduling are fundamental issues in a Workflow Management System (WfMS). Effective resource management in WfMS should examine resource allocation together with task scheduling since these problems impose mutual constraints. Optimization of the one factor is subject to the other constraints and vice versa. Thus, an ideal algorithm should take into account not only performance metrics of the infrastructure, such as the number of resources and their utilization, but also quality criteria such as the percentage of tasks undergone violation in their temporal restrictions. In this paper, we propose an innovative algorithm which jointly optimizes the two aforementioned contradictory criteria. The algorithm, called Resource Conflicts Joint Optimization (Re.Co.Jo.Op.), minimizes resource conflicts subject to temporal constraints and simultaneously optimizes throughput or utilization subject to resources constraints. To achieve the optimization, the two factors are formulated in a matrix form and the optimal solution is found by applying concepts of the generalized eigenvalue analysis. A rough outline of an agent-based architecture is proposed to achieve runtime integration of our algorithm into a functional WfMS, while experimental results under different load environments and tasks assumption reveal the superiority of the proposed strategy than the other conventional approaches.