Scientific Workflows for the Enterprise

Organizations that depend on complex calculations for their day-to-day business such as science and engineering firms need enterprise-level management systems for their calculations. These systems ideally allow subject-matter experts to automate calculations and disseminate them to other users in a controlled way that encourages standard practice and tracks results. Scientific workflow ideas have a large part to play; graphical workflow composition and provenance metadata are examples that directly apply. Scientific workflow systems can provide the leverage to promote business-critical calculations to first-class enterprise-level content. As techniques continue to mature and standards emerge, scientific workflows will inevitably become a standard business tool for organizations that rely on complex calculations for their everyday work.