Workflow and Web Services

Many IT applications must interact with other software components or the human beings that perform parts of a business process. Two important integration technologies are workflow and Web services. Workflow engines are increasingly used to describe the flow of information among applications and people, and Web services are becoming the preferred way for two applications to exchange information and request services of each other, replacing Distributed COM and Remote Procedure Calls.

Microsoft delivers its primary technologies for workflow and Web services in the .NET Framework. The company also plans management tools for those technologies in a project code-named Dublin. (See the sidebar “‘Dublin’ Manages Workflows and Web Services“.)

Workflow

Workflow is a term that typically refers to the activities, interactions, events, and flow of information that make up business processes. (Microsoft sometimes distinguishes between system workflow that does not involve human participants and human workflow that does.) For example, in an equipment requisition process workflow, an employee might submit a request to an ERP application, which might apply business rules or logic (such as examining whether the amount of the request exceeds the employee’s spending authority) before sending an approval form to the employee’s manager or electronically submitting the order to the order-entry application of an appropriate equipment supplier.