Enabling workflow in UPnP networks

UPnP networks can be enriched by integrating workflow management systems with UPnP capabilities. Thus, interactions between UPnP devices become manageable and UPnP networks can be used for entire technical or business processes. On the other hand the integration of UPnP capability opens new perspectives for workflow management systems (e.g. controlling devices). This paper describes how to enable workflow management systems in UPnP networks. We identified two levels of integration: workflow management systems that control UPnP networks and workflow management systems that act as an UPnP device at the same time. In the latter case we propose two UPnP services: WorkflowControl service offering actions for creating process instances, actions for controlling and for observing them and ProcessDefinition service allowing installing/uninstalling process definitions. This approach was successfully implemented and tested within an UPnP audio video network. We are not aware of any other approach integrating workflow services into UPnP enabled embedded systems.