Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

Frequently process workflows are distributed collections of activities that involve groups of individuals at disparate locations. To coordinate these tasks, a process support system should provide for distributed process execution and integration with tools across networks.

We describe the use of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), an increasingly ubiquitous technology, to provide a coordination mechanism for distributed process execution and tool integration. Building on the Endeavors process support system, we discuss extensions to an HTTP server to provide support for communication and coordination between system components as well as integration with external tools. We also examine several progressively more distributed and flexible approaches to distribution using HTTP and Endeavors.