Performance equivalent analysis of workflow systems based on stochastic petri net models

Abstract

Performance analysis is one of the most important aspects in workflow management system. In this paper, we propose the stochastic Petri nets workflow model (WF-SPN), which is the extension of WF-net. Based on our model, we give four performance equivalent formulae for four basic routing pattern of workflow system. Then, we put forward an approximate performance analysis method on the base of our performance equivalent formulae. An example illustrates our method can solve real-world problems efficiently.