Evangelos has a workflow.

entry id -(get xrefs [one target DB name])-> list of IDs in the target DB

-(describe ID)-> description for the ID

Processing this a single ID at a time was very slow. So, the services where modified to accept lists of IDs and return a result for each of these (a list of lists). This fixed the performance issues, but added others.

• no indication of progress through the list - either not run or run
• now it is a long-running transaction so it potentially times-out if you ask to process too many IDs
• the whole set of IDs must be processed before the next step can be started - partial results would support pipelining through this workflow

Language:

• client: Java + jaxws toolkit
• server: Java + jaxws toolkit
• platform: mac or unix

Evangelos would prefer an open-source solution, the product is possibly going to be licensed under creative commons.

He would like to expose the individual services to other people. Would like to be able to use other people's services in his workflow. Would be happy to use a workflow engine ratehr than the custom workflow java scripting application he is using now.