Managing Processes on Mobile Devices: The MARPLE Approach

Ubiquitous Computing is considered as enabler for linking everyday life with information and communication technology. However, developing pervasive applications that provide personalized user assistance is still a challenge. Relevant scenarios are diverse and encompass domains like healthcare, logistics, and business collaboration. Two of the technologies that show increasing maturity in respect to the demands of such applications are light-weight frameworks and process engines for mobile computing. Their fusion, however, is in a rather premature state. Generally, the support of mobile collaboration using a process engine raises challenging issues that need to be addressed. In the MARPLE project we target at a tight integration of process management technology with mobile computing frameworks in order to enable mobile process support in the aforementioned scenarios. In this demo paper we give insights into the MARPLE architecture and its components. In particular, we introduce the MARPLE process engine which enables light-weight as well as flexible process support on mobile devices.