Key research issues in grid workflow verification and validation

In the grid architecture, a grid workflow system is a type of high-level grid middleware which is supposed to support modelling, redesign and execution of large-scale sophisticated e-science and e-business processes in many complex scientific and business applications. To ensure the correctness of grid workflow specification and execution, grid workflow verification and validation must be conducted so that we can identify any violations and consequently take proper action to remove them in time. However, current research on the grid workflow verification and validation is just at the early stage and very few projects focus on them. Therefore, a systematic identification of key research issues in the grid workflow verification and validation field is no doubt helpful and should be presented so that we can be on the right track and reduce unnecessary work as far as possible. Hence, in this paper, we systematically analyse the grid workflow verification and validation and investigate their key research issues. Especially, we identify some important open research points which are not discussed by the current research and hence need further investigation. All these analyses form a big picture for the grid workflow verification and validation.