System and method to automate provenance-aware application execution

A method to support ad hoc collaboration and generation of workflows for a team of users, the method comprising:

• creating a catalog of applications and storing them on a computer server;
• launching the applications in the catalog;
• recording in a provenance graph, data that are input to the launched applications and a corresponding source of the data that are input into the launched applications, and data that are output from the launched applications;
• recording, in the provenance graph, subsequences of the launched applications, and a history of execution of the recorded subsequences of the launched applications;
• querying the provenance graph, by a user, to select one of the recorded subsequences of the launched applications;
• automatically recommending execution of a plurality of the recorded subsequences of the launched applications, based on the history of execution of the recorded subsequences of the launched applications;
• creating a new application with the selected subsequence of the launched applications and the recommended subsequences of the launched applications;
• selecting, by a user, an application from the catalog of applications;
• creating a note node in the provenance graph, and storing in the note node comments about the selected application, and storing in the note node invocation data for the selected application;
• assigning parameters for the selected application based on an execution history of the catalog of applications, and based on input from a user;
• storing the assigned parameters for the selected application in the note node;
• and
• completing execution of the selected application using the assigned parameters stored in the note node.

A computer program product for supporting ad hoc collaboration and generation of workflows for a team of users, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a computer to:

• execute applications from a computer server;
• share input and output data from the executed applications among the executed applications;
• send data from a provenance graph to those executed applications;
• selectively use the data from the provenance graph and additional input to create derived data and derived outputs;
• route the derived data and derived outputs to the provenance graph;
• automatically record relationship information for the executed applications in the provenance graph, wherein the relationship information includes data describing a relationship between the executed applications;
• record, in the provenance graph, subsequences of the executed applications and a history of execution of the recorded subsequences of the executed applications;
• detect changes to the relationship information for the executed applications;
• store changes to the relationship information for the executed applications in the provenance graph;
• query the provenance graph, by one of the users, to select one of the recorded subsequences of the executed applications;
• automatically recommend execution of at least one of the recorded subsequences of the executed applications based on a history of execution of the recorded subsequences of the executed applications;
• create a new application with the selected subsequence of the executed applications and the recommended at least one of the subsequences of the executed applications;
• launch the newly created application;
• and
• store the newly created application in a catalog of applications for use by the users.