Applying Real-Time Scheduling Techniques to Software Processes: A Position Paper

Process and workflow technology have traditionally not allowed for the specification of, nor run-time enforcement of, real-time requirements, despite the fact that time-to-market and other real-time constraints are more stringent than ever. Without specification of timing constraints, process designers cannot effectively reason about real-time constraints on process programs and the efficacy of their process programs in satisfying those constraints. Furthermore, without executable semantics for those timing specifications, such reasoning might not be applicable to the process as actually executed. We seek to support reasoning about the real-time requirements of software processes. In this paper, we describe work in which we have added real-time specifications to a process programming language, and in which we have added deadline timers and task scheduling to enforce the real-time requirements of processes.