A Workflow Interoperability Approach Based on Blockchain

摘要

Workflow interoperability generally refers to the ability for workflow enactment services to coordinate work. However, the lack of trust is often a roadblock, especially when workflow enactment services interoperate across organizational boundaries. Blockchain technology is a technology for data sharing across a network of untrusted participants. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based workflow interoperability approach. Workflow enactment services communicate and interoperate with each other via blockchain instead of trusting a central authority, but trust is maintained. Furthermore, blockchain documents interoperation of workflow enactment services, such an audit trail can be used to depict a complete inter-organizational collaboration. Our approach comprises the combination of an interoperability interface and a general interoperability service. Interoperability service runs on a blockchain environment, and workflow enactment services can call interoperability service through their interoperability interface to communicate with each other. We implement the prototype of our approach and demonstrate its feasibility by applying it to an inter-organizational collaboration case. We evaluate our approach mainly via conducting a performance evaluation.