SynfiniWay
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| Developer(s) | Fujitsu |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 4.0
/ September 2010 |
| Operating system | Linux, Unix, Windows |
| License | commercial |
| Website | www |
SynfiniWay was middleware with which a virtualised IT framework can be created that provides a uniform and global view of resources within a department, a company, or a company with its suppliers.[1] This virtualised IT framework is service-oriented, meaning that applications are run as services, which are a system-independent view of applications. Several applications can be linked in a workflow, and data exchange between the applications participating in the workflow is implicitly managed by the IT framework. SynfiniWay is platform-independent, allowing almost any distributed heterogeneous platform to be linked into its virtualised IT framework.
A virtualised IT framework is implemented with SynfiniWay by installing a component with specific software agents on each of the systems in the framework. There are three major types of components in SynfiniWay:[2]
- Director, which manages end-user connection, authentication & authorisation, and workflow task scheduling and execution.
- Service Manager, which publishes and runs services on behalf of users and which executes data migration.
- Acquaintance Manager, which links one remote network, known as a SynfiniWay neighborhood, to another to allow resource discovery and file transfer between components residing in different neighbourhoods.
All components are based on Java, so that they can be deployed in a multi-platform environment. An example framework with two neighbourhoods is shown in the figure. Adding or removing components is automatically detected by the framework. The SynfiniWay meta-scheduler automatically adjusts to changes in Service Manager or service availability.
Service management
SynfiniWay is geared towards service management.[1] This means that an application or a command that will be utilised is defined as a service and published on the SynfiniWay IT framework. Simple or complex tasks can be abstracted into services for execution. By using these abstracted services, a user can easily run applications or commands regardless of how complex they may be or what underlying IT infrastructure is required. They provide a form of virtualisation of computing resources since the user need not be aware of where the service is available or how it is run.
Workflow management
A technical or business process is created by linking services in a workflow.[3] Workflows in SynfiniWay are based on WfMC version 1.0. A workflow defines one or more tasks that will be executed with a given execution logic (branch, loop, conditional). SynfiniWay supports multi-instance tasks which run a service multiple times concurrently. Also it supports a workflow of workflows, whereby a workflow can be executed as a task of a higher level workflow.
