Workflow Policy Server

Not Available Workflow management systems (WMS) may control access between hundreds of users and thousands of objects, so simplified policy management is critical. WMS developers recommend Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) since roles occur naturally in workflows; however, the typical RBAC model lacks the framework to express workflow policies adequately. Traditionally, a WMS mediates accesses to objects in its workflows. As workflow technology grows in popularity, workflows eventually may control distributed objects such as managed by CORBA and COM/DCOM. Protections must be added to these objects to prevent users from circumventing the WMS and accessing the objects directly. We propose the Workflow Policy Server (WPS) to address these challenges. The WPS simplifies workflow policy management with a powerful RBAC Model that has been extended with workflow concepts. In particular, the concept of a workflow task or 'step' has been added. Distributed objects are protected because the WPS can push out the access control policy for a specific stop when directed. The WPS translates the step's policy into the enforcement language of the target object manager.