Initial Evaluation of the State of the Art

This deliverable summarises the state-of-the-art with regard to Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) and workflow languages in particular. Technologies such as Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) and Model Driven Engineering (MDE) are also discussed in the context of workflow languages. AOSD is considered relevant for workflow languages to improve modularity of workflows, and therefore increase reuse and maintainability by having multiple, composable sub-workflows. MDE is also considered increasingly important as a supporting technology for service-oriented architectures and workflow languages in particular, as it provides an easy way to translate between numerous workflow format and to do manipulations of workflow descriptions in general. The deliverable starts off with a glossary of the terms that are used in SOAs and workflow languages. Then, an overview of available tools/engines that we have evaluated is given. Finally, a list of references related to the topic is given.