I have a requirment to develop a Workflow Enactment Service. The Fundamental capabilities provided by the Workflow Enactment Service revolve around the management of Process Specifications and the execution of Process Instances. Process Specification will be encoded using XML-based structures.

I don't have much knowledge about Work Flow Management. Could any body help me in designing a J2EE based architecture for Workflow Enactment Service.

I have a requirment to develop a Workflow Enactment Service. The Fundamental capabilities provided by the Workflow Enactment Service revolve around the management of Process Specifications and the execution of Process Instances. Process Specification will be encoded using XML-based structures.I don't have much knowledge about Work Flow Management. Could any body help me in designing a J2EE based architecture for Workflow Enactment Service.

Anup,

Unless you really, really, REALLY want to roll your own, you will probably save yourself alot of time and effort reusing one of the many good open source workflow products already out there. There are alot of hidden details that make what should be a simple problem actually very complex.

You can find a list of candidates here.

HTH
Kit

Sorry, I should say that if you really, really, REALLY want to roll your own, then you should first read up on Petri Nets. This is a practical introduction using PHP though you should be able to translate it fairly easily.

Kit